Jiili 


i 


i! 


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I 


LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


PRESENTED  BY 

Pearl    Chase 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 
"AGUECHEEK" 


MY 
UNKNOWN   CHUM 

"AGUECHEEK" 


WITH  A  FOREWORD  BY 

HENRY  GARRITY 


NEW  YORK 
THE  DEVIN-ADAIR  COMPANY 

1919 


Copyright,  1912,  by 
THE  DEVIN-ADAIR  COMPANY 


PRINTED  IN   U.   S.  A. 


A  perfect  woman,  nobly  planned, 
To  warn,  to  comfort,  and  command; 
And  yet  a  spirit  still  and  bright 
With  something  of  an  angel  light. 


FOREWORD 

Life  is  too  short  for  reading  inferior  books. 

BRYCE. 

IN  1878  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Mr.  of 
Detroit  was  instrumental  in  securing  for  me  the 
close  friendship  of  a  man  some  twenty  years  my 
senior— a  man  of  unusual  poise  of  mind  and  of  such 
superb  character  that  I  have  ever  looked  upon  him 
as  a  perfect  type  of  Newman's  ideal  gentleman. 

My  new  friend  was  fond  of  all  that  is  best  in  art 
and  literature.  His  pet  possession,  however,  was  an 
old  book  long  out  of  print— "Aguecheek."  He  spoke 
to  me  of  its  classic  charm  and  of  the  recurring  plea- 
sure he  found  in  reading  and  rereading  the  delightful 
pages  of  its  unknown  author,  who  saw  in  travel,  in 
art,  in  literature,  in  life  and  humanity,  much  that 
other  travellers  and  other  writers  and  scholars  had 
failed  to  observe— seeing  all  with  a  purity  of  vision, 
a  clearness  of  intellect,  and  recording  it  with  a  grace 
and  ease  of  phrase  that  suggest  that  he  himself  had 
perhaps  been  taught  by  the  Angelic  Doctor  referred 
to  in  the  closing  lines  of  his  last  essay. 

A  proffered  loan  of  the  book  was  eagerly  accepted. 
Though  still  in  my  teens,  I  soon  became  a  convert  to 
all  that  my  cultured  friend  had  said  in  its  praise. 

With  the  aid  of  a  Murray  Street  dealer  in  old 

vii 


viii  FOREWORD 

books,  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  get  a  copy  for  my- 
self. I  read  it  again  and  again.  Obliged  to  travel 
much,  I  was  rarely  without  its  companionship;  for  I 
knew  that  if  other  reading-matter  proved  uninter- 
esting, I  could  always  find  some  new  conversational 
charm  in  the  views  and  words  of  the  World-Con- 
versant Author. 

Fearing  that  I  weighed  the  merits  of  the  work 
with  a  mental  scale  wanting  in  balance,  I  asked 
others  what  they  thought  of  it.  Much  to  my  sur- 
prise, they  had  never  even  heard  of  it.  In  fact,  in 
these  thirty-four  years  I  have  found  but  three  per- 
sons who  knew  the  book  at  all.  Recently  at  The 
Players  I  asked  Mr.  Evert  Jansen  Wendell  if  he 
knew  "Aguecheek."  "Why,"  said  he,  "it  was  in  my 
hands  only  yesterday.  It  is  in  my  library — my  dra- 
matic library."  The  late  John  E.  Grote  Higgens, 
President  of  the  St.  George  Society,  knew  its  inter- 
esting pages  well;  and  it  is,  I  am  assured,  a  "prized 
unit"  in  the  library  of  His  Eminence  Cardinal 
Farley. 

I  lent  my  copy  to  young  and  old,  to  men  and 
women  of  various  professions  and  to  friends  in  the 
world  of  commerce.  The  opinion  of  all  might  be 
summed  up  in  the  appreciation  of  a  well-known  Mon- 
signor— himself  an  observant  traveller  and  an  ardent 
lover  of  "real"  literature.  Returning  the  book,  he 
said,  "I  have  read  it  with  the  greatest  of  pleasure, 


FOREWORD  ix 

and  have  turned  to  it  often.  I  could  read  it  a  hun- 
dred times.  It  is  a  great  book.  Its  fine  humor,  its 
depth,  its  simplicity  and  high  ideals,  commend  it  to 
all,  especially  the  highly  educated — the  scholar." 

Charles  B.  Fairbanks  is  the  reputed  author,  but 
the  records  show  that  he  died  in  1859,  when  but 
thirty-two  years  old— an  age  that  the  text  repeatedly 
discredits.  Whether  written  by  Mr.  Fairbanks  or 
not,  the  modest  author  hid  his  identity  in  an  obscure 
pen-name  that  he  might  thus  be  free  to  make  his  book 
"his  heart  in  other  men's  hands." 

Some  necessary  changes  have  been  made  in  the 
text.  In  offering  the  book  to  the  public  and  in  reluc- 
tantly changing  the  title,  I  am  but  following  the 
insistent  advice  of  friends— critics  and  scholars — 
whose  judgment  is  superior  to  my  own.  No  one 
seemed  to  know  the  meaning  of  "Aguecheek" 
(taken,  no  doubt,  from  a  character  in  "Twelfth 
Night"),  and  few  could  even  spell  or  pronounce 
the  word;  moreover,  there  is  not  the  remotest  con- 
nection between  title  and  text.  The  old  book  has 
been  the  best  of  comrades,  "the  joy  of  my  youth,  the 
consolation  of  my  riper  years."  If  the  new  name 
lacks  dignity  as  well  as  euphony,  the  reader  will,  I 
am  sure,  understand  and  appreciate  the  spirit  of 
affection  that  inspired  "My  Unknown  Chum." 

HENRY  GARRITY. 

New  York,  July,  1912. 


CONTENTS 

SKETCHES  OF  FOREIGN  TRAVEL 

PAGE 

A  PASSAGE  ACROSS  THE  ATLANTIC 3 

LONDON 19 

ANTWERP  AND  BRUSSELS ,    .     .     .     .     33 

GENOA  AND  FLORENCE .     45 

ANCIENT  ROME 60 

MODERN  ROME     .    , 69 

ROME  TO  MARSEILLES 81 

MARSEILLES,  LYONS,  AND  Aix  IN  SAVOY 94 

Aix  TO  PARIS 107 

PARIS       122 

PARIS— THE  LOUVRE  AND  ART 136 

NAPOLEON  THE  THIRD 147 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  FOREIGN  TRAVEL 165 

PARIS  TO  BOULOGNE 179 

LONDON       194 

xi 


xii  CONTENTS 

ESSAYS 

PACK 

STREET  LIFE 209 

HARD  UP  IN  PARIS 222 

THE  OLD  CORNER 235 

SACRED  TO  THE  MEMORY  OF  THEATRE  ALLEY  .     .     .  248 

THE  OLD  CATHEDRAL 261 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  SUFFERING 275 

BOYHOOD  AND  BOYS 288 

JOSEPHINE— GIRLHOOD  AND  GIRLS 301 

SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMMENTATORS 315 

MEMORIALS  OF  MRS.  GRUNDY 330 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE 343 

BEHIND  THE  SCENES 354 

THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CANT 366 


SKETCHES 
OF  FOREIGN  TRAVEL 


A  PASSAGE  ACROSS 
THE  ATLANTIC 

TT^O  an  American  visiting  Europe  for  the  first 
time,"  saith  Geoffrey  Crayon,  "the  long  voy- 
age which  he  has  to  make  is  an  excellent  prepara- 
tive." To  the  greater  proportion  of  those  who 
revisit  the  old  world,  the  voyage  is  only  an  interval 
of  ennui  and  impatience.  Not  such  is  it  to  the  writer 
of  this  sentence.  For  him  the  sea  has  charms  which 
age  cannot  wither,  nor  head  winds  abate.  For  him 
the  voyage  is  a  retreat  from  the  cares  of  business,  a 
rest  from  the  pursuit  of  wealth,  and  a  prolonged  re- 
miniscence of  his  youthful  days,  when  he  first  trod 
the  same  restless  pathway,  and  the  glories  of  Eng- 
land and  the  Continent  rose  up  resplendent  before 
him,  very  much  as  the  gorgeous  city  in  the  clouds 
looms  up  before  the  young  gentleman  in  one  of  the 
late  lamented  Mr.  Cole's  pictures.  For  it  is  a  satis- 
faction to  him  to  remember  that  such  things  were, — 
even  though  the  performances  of  life  have  not  by 
any  means  equalled  the  promises  of  the  programme 
of  youth, — though  age  and  the  cares  of  an  increasing 
family  have  stifled  poetry,  and  the  genius  of  Ro- 
mance has  long  since  taken  his  hat. 

The  recollections  of  youthful  Mediterranean  voy- 
ages are  a  mine  of  wealth  to  an  old  man.  They  have 
transformed  ancient  history  into  a  majestic  reality 
for  him,  and  the  pages  of  his  dog's-eared  Lempriere 

C3] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

become  instinct  with  life  as  he  recalls  those  halcyon 
days  when  he  reclined  on  deck  beneath  an  awning, 
and  gazed  on  Crete  and  Lesbos,  and  the  mountains 
that  look  on  Marathon.  Neither  age  nor  misfor- 
tune can  ever  rob  him  of  the  joy  he  feels  when  he 
looks  back  to  the  cloudless  afternoon  when  he  passed 
from  the  stormy  Atlantic  to  that  blue  inland  sea,— 
when  he  saw  where  Africa  has  so  long  striven  to 
shake  hands  with  Europe,  —  and  thrilled  at  the 
thought  that  the  sea  then  glowing  with  the  hues  of 
sunset  was  once  ploughed  by  the  invincible  galleys  of 
the  Cassars,  and  dashed  its  angry  surges  over  the 
shipwrecked  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles. 

It  is  rather  a  pleasant  thing  to  report  one's  self  on 
board  a  fine  packet  ship  on  a  bright  morning  in  May 
— the  old  portmanteau  packed  again,  and  thoughts 
turned  seaward.  There  is  a  kind  of  inspiration  in 
the  song  of  the  sailors  at  the  windlass,  (that  is,  as 
many  of  them  as  are  able  to  maintain  a  perpendicular 
position  at  that  early  period  of  the  voyage ;)  the  very 
clanking  of  the  anchor  chains  seems  to  speak  of 
speedy  liberation,  and  the  ship  sways  about  as  if 
yearning  for  the  freedom  of  the  open  sea.  At  last 
the  anchor  is  up,  and  the  ship  swings  around,  and  soon 
is  gliding  down  the  channel ;  and  slowly  the  new  gas- 
ometer, and  Bunker  Hill  Monument,  and  the  old 
gasometer  (with  the  dome)  on  Beacon  Hill,  begin 
to  diminish  in  size.  (I  might  introduce  a  fine  mis- 
quotation here  about  growing  "small  by  degrees,  and 
beautifully  less,"  but  that  I  don't  like  novelties  in  a 
correspondence  like  this.)  The  embankments  of 
Fort  Warren  seem  brighter  and  more  verdurous  than 
ever,  and  the  dew-drops  glitter  in  the  sunbeams,  as 

C4] 


A  PASSAGE  ACROSS  THE  ATLANTIC 

dear  Nellie's  tears  did,  when  she  said  good-by,  that 
very  morning.  Then,  as  we  get  into  the  bay,  the 
tocsin  calls  to  lunch — and  the  appetite  for  lobsters, 
sardines,  ale,  and  olives  makes  us  all  forget  how 
much  we  fear  lest  business  of  immediate  importance 
may  prevent  an  early  return  to  the  festive  mahogany. 
And  shortly  after,  the  pilot  takes  his  leave,  and  with 
him  the  small  knot  of  friends,  who  have  gone  as  far 
as  friendship,  circumstances,  and  the  tide  will  allow. 
And  so  the  voyage  commences— the  captain  takes 
command— and  all  feel  that  the  jib-boom  points  to- 
wards Motherland,  and  begin  to  calculate  the  dis- 
tance, and  anticipate  the  time  when  the  ship  shall  be 
boarded  by  a  blue-coated  beef-eater,  who  will  take 
her  safely  "round  'Oly'ead,  and  dock  'er."  The  day 
wears  away,  and  the  sunset  finds  the  passengers  well 
acquainted,  and  a  healthy  family  feeling  growing  up 
among  them.  The  next  morning  we  greet  the  sea 
and  skies,  but  not  our  mother  earth.  The  breeze  is 
light — the  weather  is  fine — so  that  the  breakfast  is 
discussed  before  a  full  bench.  Every  body  feels  well, 
but  sleepy,  and  the  day  is  spent  in  conversation  and 
enjoyment  of  the  novelty  of  life  at  sea.  The  gentle 
heaving  of  the  ocean  is  rather  agreeable  than  other- 
wise, and  the  young  ladies  promenade  the  deck,  and 
flatter  themselves  that  they  have  (if  I  might  use  such 
an  expression)  their  sea  legs  on.  But  the  next  day 
the  gentle  heaving  has  become  a  heavy  swell,— loco- 
motion is  attended  with  great  difficulties,  -Jthe  pro- 
cess of  dressing  is  a  severe  practical  joke, — and  the 
timorous  approach  to  the  breakfast  table  and  pre- 
cipitous retreat  from  it,  are  very  interesting  studies 
c  to  a  disinterested  spectator^  The  dining-saloon  is 

C  5  f 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

thinly  populated  when  the  bell  rings— the  gentlemen 
preferring  to  lounge  about  on  deck — they  have  slight 
headaches— not  seasick— of  course  not— the  gentle- 
man who  had  taken  eight  sherry  cobblers  was  not 
intoxicated  at  all— it  was  a  glass  of  lemonade,  that 
he  took  afterwards,  that  disagreed  with  him  and 
made  his  footing  rather  unsteady.  But  Neptune  is 
inexorable,  and  exacts  his  tribute,  and  the  payers 
show  their  receipts  in  pale  faces  and  dull  eyes, 
whether  they  acknowledge  it  or  no;  and  many  a  poor 
victim  curses  the  pernicious  hour  that  ever  saw  him 
shipped,  and  comes  to  the  Irishman's  conclusion  that 
the  pleasantest  part  of  going  away  from  home  is  the 
getting  back  again. 

But  a  few  days  suffice  to  set  all  minds  and  stom- 
achs at  rest,  and  we  settle  down  into  the  ordinary 
routine  of  life  at  sea.  The  days  glide  by  rapidly,  as 
Shakspeare  says,  "with  books,  and  work,  and  health- 
ful play,"  and  as  we  take  a  retrospective  view  of  the 
passage,  it  seems  to  be  a  maze  of  books,  backgam- 
mon, bad  jokes,  cigars,  crochet,  cribbage,  and  con- 
versation. Contentment  obtains  absolute  sway, 
which  even  ten  days  of  head  winds  and  calms  cannot 
shake  off.  Perhaps  this  is  owing  in  a  great  measure 
to  the  good  temper  and  gentlemanly  bearing  of  the 
captain,  who  never  yielded  to  the  temptation,  before 
which  so  many  intrepid  manners  have  fallen,  to 
speak  in  disrespectful  and  condemnatory  terms  of 
the  weather.  How  varied  must  be  the  qualities 
which  make  a  good  commander  of  a  packet  ship; 
what  a  model  of  patience  he  must  be— patience  not 
only  with  the  winds,  but  also  with  variable  elements 
of  humanity  which  surround  him.  He  must  have  a 


A  PASSAGE  ACROSS  THE  ATLANTIC 

good  word  for  every  body  and  a  smiling  face,  al- 
though he  knows  that  the  ship  will  not  head  her 
course  by  four  points  of  the  compass  on  either  tack; 
and  must  put  aside  with  a  jest  the  unconscious  pro- 
fessional gentleman  whose  hat  intervenes  between 
his  sextant  and  the  horizon.  In  short,  he  must  pos- 
sess in  an  eminent  degree  what  Virgil  calls  the  sua- 
viter  in  what's-his-name  with  the  fortiter  in  what- 
d'ye-call-it.  I  am  much  disposed  to  think  that  had 
Job  been  a  sea  captain  with  a  protracted  head  wind, 
the  land  of  Uz  would  not  have  attained  celebrity  as 
the  abode  of  the  most  patient  of  men. 

An  eminent  Boston  divine,  not  long  since  deceased, 
who  was  noted  alike  for  his  Johnsonian  style  and  his 
very  un- Johnsonian  meekness  of  manner,  once  said  to 
a  sea  captain,  "I  have,  sir,  in  the  course  of  my  profes- 
sional career,  encountered  many  gentlemen  of  your 
calling;  but  I  really  must  say  that  I  have  never  been 
powerfully  impressed  in  a  moral  way  by  them,  for 
their  conversation  abounded  in  expressions  savouring 
more  of  strength  than  of  righteousness;  indeed,  but 
few  of  them  seemed  capable  of  enunciating  the  sim- 
plest sentence  without  prefacing  it  with  a  profane 
allusion  to  the  possible  ultimate  fate  of  their  visual 
organs,  which  I  will  not  shock  your  fastidiousness  by 
repeating."  The  profanity  of  seafaring  men  has 
always  been  remarked;  it  has  been  a  staple  article  for 
the  lamentations  of  the  moralist  and  the  jests  of  the 
immoralist ;  but  I  must  say  that  I  am  not  greatly  sur- 
prised at  its  prevalence,  for  when  I  have  seen  a 
thunder  squall  strike  a  ship  at  sea,  and  every  effort 
was  making  to  save  the  rent  canvas,  it  has  seemed  to 
me  as  if  those  whose  dealings  were  with  the  elements 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

actually  needed  a  stronger  vocabulary  than  is  re- 
quired for  less  sublime  transactions.  To  speak  in 
ordinary  terms  on  such  occasions  would  be  as  absurd 
as  the  Cockney's  application  of  the  epithets  "clever" 
and  "neat"  to  Niagara.  I  am  not  attempting  to 
palliate  every-day  profanity,  for  I  was  brought  up  in 
the  abhorrence  of  it,  having  been  taken  at  an  early 
age  from  the  care  of  the  lady  "who  ran  to  catch  me 
when  I  fell,  and  kissed  the  place  to  make  it  well," 
and  placed  in  the  country  under  the  superintendence 
of  a  maiden  aunt,  who  was  very  moral  indeed,  and 
who  instilled  her  principles  into  my  young  heart  with 
wonderful  eloquence  and  power.  "Andrew,"  she 
used  to  say  to  me,  "you  must  n't  laugh  in  meetin' ; 
I  Ve  no  doubt  that  the  man  who  was  hung  last  week 
(for  this  was  in  those  unenlightened  days  when  the 
punishment  of  crime  was  deemed  a  duty,  and  not  a 
sin)  began  his  wicked  course  by  laughing  in  meetin' ; 
and  just  think,  if  you  were  to  commit  a  murder— for 
those  who  murder  will  steal— and  those  who  steal 
will  swear  and  lie — and  those  who  swear  and  lie  will 
drink  rum — and  then  if  they  don't  stop  in  their  sinful 
ways,  they  get  so  bad  that  they  will  smoke  cigars  and 
break  the  Sabbath;  and  you  know  what  becomes  of 
'em  then." 

The  ordinary  routine  of  life  at  sea,  which  is  so  irk- 
some to  most  people,  has  a  wonderful  charm  for  me. 
There  is  something  about  a  well-manned  ship  that 
commands  my  deepest  enthusiasm.  Each  day  is 
filled  with  a  quiet  and  satisfactory  kind  of  enjoyment. 
From  that  early  hour  of  the  morning  when  the  cap- 
tain turns  out  to  see  what  is  the  prospect  of  the  day, 
and  to  drink  a  mug  of  boiling  coffee  as  strong  as 

C81 


A  PASSAGE  ACROSS  THE  ATLANTIC 

aquafortis,  and  as  black  as  the  newly-opened  fluid 
Day  &  Martin,  from  No.  97,  High  Holborn,  to  that 
quiet  time  in  the  evening  when  that  responsible  func- 
tionary goes  below  and  turns  in,  with  a  sententious 
instruction  to  the  officer  of  the  watch  to  "wake  him 
at  twelve,  if  there  's  any  change  in  the  weather," 
there  is  no  moment  that  hangs  heavy  on  my  hands. 
I  love  the  regular  striking  of  the  bells,  reminding  me 
every  half  hour  how  rapidly  time  and  I  are  getting 
on.  The  regularity  with  which  every  thing  goes  on, 
from  the  early  washing  of  the  decks  to  the  sweeping 
of  the  same  at  four  bells  in  the  evening,  makes  me 
think  of  those  ancient  monasteries  in  the  south  of 
Europe,  where  the  unvarying  round  of  duties  creates 
a  paradise  which  those  who  are  subject  to  the  unex- 
pected fluctuations  of  common  life  might  be  par- 
doned for  coveting.  If  the  rude  voices  that  swell  the 
boisterous  chorus  which  hoists  the  tugging  studding- 
sail  up  by  three-feet  pulls,  only  imperfectly  remind 
one  of  the  sounds  he  hears  when  the  full  choir  of  the 
monastery  makes  the  grim  arches  of  the  chapel  vi- 
brate with  the  solemn  tones  of  the  Gregorian  chant, 
certainly  the  unbroken  calmness  of  the  morning 
watch  may  well  be  allowed  to  symbolize  the  rapt 
meditation  and  unspoken  devotion  which  finds  its 
home  within  the  "studious  cloister's  pale"  ;  and  I  may 
be  pardoned  for  comparing  the  close  attention  of  the 
captain  and  his  mates  in  getting  the  sun's  altitude  and 
working  out  the  ship's  position  to  the  "examination 
of  conscience"  among  the  devout  dwellers  in  the  con- 
vent, and  the  working  out  of  the  spiritual  reckoning 
which  shows  them  how  much  they  have  varied  from 
the  course  laid  down  on  the  divine  chart,  and  how 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

far  they  are  from  the  wished-for  port  of  perfec- 
tion. 

I  have  a  profound  respect  for  the  sea  as  a  moral 
teacher.  No  man  can  be  tossed  about  upon  it  with- 
out feeling  his  impotence  and  insignificance,  and  hav- 
ing his  heart  opened  to  the  companions  of  his  danger 
as  it  has  never  been  opened  before.  The  sea  brings 
out  the  real  character  of  every  man;  and  those  who 
journey  over  its  "deep  invisible  paths"  find  them- 
selves intrusting  their  most  sacred  confidences  to  the 
keeping  of  comparative  strangers.  The  convention- 
alities of  society  cannot  thrive  in  a  salt  atmosphere; 
and  you  shall  be  delighted  to  see  how  frank  and 
agreeable  the  "world's  people"  can  be  when  they  are 
caught  where  the  laws  of  fashion  are  silent,  and  what 
a  wholesome  neglect  of  personal  appearances  pre- 
vails among  them  when  that  sternest  of  democrats, 
Neptune,  has  placed  them  where  they  feel  that  it 
would  be  folly  to  try  to  produce  an  impression.  The 
gentleman  of  the  prize  ring,  whom  Dickens  intro- 
duces looking  with  admiration  at  the  stately  Mr. 
Dombey,  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  there  was  a  way 
within  the  resources  of  science  of  "doubling-up"  that 
incarnation  of  dignity;  but,  for  the  accomplishment 
of  such  an  end,  one  good,  pitching,  head-sea  would  be 
far  more  effectual  than  all  the  resources  of  the 
"manly  art."  The  most  unbending  assumption  could 
not  survive  that  dreadful  sinking  of  the  stomach,  that 
convulsive  clutch  at  the  nearest  object  for  support, 
and  the  faint,  gurgling  cry  of  "stew'rd"  which  an- 
nounces that  the  victim  has  found  his  natural  level. 
A  thorough  novitiate  of  seasickness  is  as  indispen- 


A  PASSAGE  ACROSS  THE  ATLANTIC 

sable,  in  my  opinion,  to  the  formation  of  true  manly 
character,  as  the  measles  to  a  well-regulated  child- 
hood. Mentally  as  well  as  corporeally,  seasickness 
is  a  wonderful  renovator.  We  are  such  victims  of 
habit,  so  prone  to  run  in  a  groove,  (most  of  us  in  a 
groove  that  may  well  be  called  a  "vicious  circle,") 
that  we  need  to  be  thoroughly  shaken  up,  and  made 
to  take  a  new  view  of  the  rationale  of  our  way  of 
life.  I  do  not  believe  that  any  man  ever  celebrated 
his  recovery  from  that  marine  malady  by  eating  the 
pickles  and  biscuit  which  always  taste  so  good  on 
such  an  occasion,  without  having  acquired  a  new  set 
of  ideas,  and  being  made  generally  wiser  and  better 
by  his  severe  experience.  I  meet  many  unamiable 
persons  "whene'er  I  take  my  walks  abroad,"  who 
only  need  two  days  of  seasickness  to  convert  them 
into  positive  ornaments  to  society. 

But,  pardon  me;  all  this  has  little  to  do  with  the 
voyage  to  Liverpool.  The  days  follow  each  other 
rapidly,  and  it  begins  to  seem  as  if  the  voyage  would 
stretch  out  to  the  crack  of  doom,  for  the  head  wind 
stands  by  us  with  the  constancy  of  a  sheriff,  and  when 
that  lacks  power  to  retard  us  we  have  a  calm.  But 
the  weather  is  beautiful,  and  all  the  time  is  spent  in 
the  open  air.  Nut  brown  maids  work  worsted  and 
crochet  on  the  cooler  side  of  the  deck,  and  gentlemen 
in  rusty  suits,  with  untrimmed  beards,  wearing  the 
"shadowy  livery  of  the  burning  sun,"  talk  of  the 
prospects  of  a  fair  wind  or  read  innumerous  novels. 
The  evenings  are  spent  in  gazing  at  a  cloudless  sky, 
and  promenading  in  the  moonshine.  Music  lends  its 
aid  and  banishes  impatience;  my  young  co-voyagers 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

seem  not  to  have  forgotten  "Sweet  Home,"  and  the 
"Old  Folks  at  Home"  would  be  very  much  gratified 
to  know  how  green  their  memory  is  kept. 

At  length  we  all  begin  to  grow  tired  of  fair 
weather.  The  cloudless  sky,  the  gorgeous  sunrises 
and  sunsets,  and  the  bright  blue  sea,  with  its  lazily 
spouting  whales  and  its  lively  porpoises  playing 
around  our  bows, — grow  positively  distasteful  to  us; 
and  we  begin  to  think  that  any  change  would  be  an 
agreeable  one.  We  do  not  have  to  wait  many  days 
before  we  are  awaked  very  early  in  the  morning,  by 
the  throwing  down  of  heavy  cordage  on  deck,  and 
the  shouts  of  the  sailors,  and  are  soon  aware  that  we 
are  subject  to  an  unusual  motion — as  if  the  ship  were 
being  propelled  by  a  strong  force  over  a  corduroy 
road  constructed  on  an  enormous  scale.  Garments, 
which  yesterday  were  content  to  hang  in  an  orderly 
manner  against  the  partitions  of  one's  state-room, 
now  obstinately  persist  in  hanging  at  all  sorts  of 
peculiar  and  disgraceful  angles.  Hat  boxes,  trunks, 
and  the  other  movables  of  the  voyager  manifest 
great  hilarity  at  the  change  in  the  weather,  and  dance 
about  the  floor  in  a  manner  that  must  satisfy  the  most 
fastidious  beholder.  Every  timber  in  the  ship  groans 
as  if  in  pain.  The  omnipresent  steward  rushes  about, 
closing  up  sky-lights  and  dead  lights,  and  "chocking" 
his  rattling  crockery  and  glassware.  On  deck  the 
change  from  the  even  keel  and  the  clear  sunlight  of 
the  day  before  is  still  more  wonderful.  The  colour 
of  the  sky  reminds  you  of  the  leaden  lining  of  a  tea- 
chest;  that  of  the  sea,  of  the  dingy  green  paper 
which  covers  the.  same.  The  sails,  which  so  many 
days  of  sunshine  have  bleached  to  a  dazzling  white- 


A  PASSAGE  ACROSS  THE  ATLANTIC 

ness,  are  now  all  furled,  except  those  which  are  neces- 
sary to  keep  some  little  headway  on  the  ship.  The 
captain  has  adorned  his  manly  frame  with  a  suit  of 
India  rubber,  which  certainly  could  not  have  been 
selected  for  its  gracefulness,  and  has  overshadowed 
his  honest  face  with  a  sou'wester  of  stupendous  pro- 
portions. With  the  exception  of  occasional  visits  to 
the  sinking  barometer,  he  spends  his  weary  day  on 
the  wet  deck,  and  tries  to  read  the  future  in  the 
blackening  waves  and  stormy  sky.  The  wheel,  which 
heretofore  has  required  but  one  man,  now  taxes  the 
strength  of  two  of  the  stoutest  of  our  crew; — so  hard 
is  it  to  keep  our  bashful  ship  heading  up  to  that  rude 
sea,  and  to  "ease  her  when  she  pitches."  The  break- 
fast suffers  sadly  from  neglect,  for  every  one  is  en- 
grossed with  the  care  of  the  weather.  At  noon  there 
is  a  lull  for  half  an  hour  or  so,  and,  in  spite  of  the 
threats  of  the  remorseless  barometer,  some  of  our 
company  try  to  look  for  an  amelioration  in  the 
meteorological  line.  But  their  hopes  are  crushed 
when  they  find  that  the  wind  has  shifted  one  or  two 
points,  and  has  set  in  to  blow  more  violently  than 
before.  The  sea,  too,  begins  to  behave  in  a  most 
capricious  and  disagreeable  style.  When  the  ship 
has,  with  a  great  deal  of  straining  and  cracking, 
ridden  safely  over  two  mighty  ridges  of  water,  and 
seems  to  be  easily  settling  down  into  a  black  valley 
between  two  foam-capped  hills,  there  comes  a  sud- 
den shock,  as  if  she  had  met  the  Palisades  of  the 
Hudson  in  her  path, — a  crackling,  grating  sound, 
like  that  of  a  huge  nutmeg-grater  operating  on  a 
coral  reef,  a  crash  like  the  combined  force  of  all  the 
battering-rarns  of  Titus  Flavius  Vespasianus  on  one 

D3] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

of  the  gates  of  Jerusalem,  —  and  a  hundred  tons  of 
angry  water  roll  aft  against  the  cabin  doors,  in  a 
manner  not  at  all  agreeable  to  weak  nerves.  For  a 
moment  the  ship  seems  to  stand  perfectly  still,  as  if 
deliberating  whether  to  go  on  or  turn  back;  then, 
realizing  that  the  ship  that  deliberates  in  such  a  time 
is  lost,  she  rises  gracefully  over  a  huge  pile  of  water 
which  was  threatening  to  submerge  her. 

The  afternoon  wears  away  slowly  with  the  passen- 
gers. They  say  but  little  to  one  another,  but  look 
about  them  from  the  security  of  the  wheel-house  as  if 
they  were  oppressed  with  a  sense  of  the  inestimable 
value  of  strong  cordage.  As  twilight  approaches, 
and  all  hands  are  just  engaged  in  taking  supper,  after 
having  ".mended  the  reefs,"  the  ship  meets  a  stag- 
gering sea,  which  seems  to  start  every  timber  in  her 
firm-set  frame,  and  our  main-top-gallant-mast  breaks 
off  like  a  stick  of  candy.  Such  things  generally  hap- 
pen just  at  night,  the  sailors  say,  when  the  difficulties 
of  clearing  away  the  broken  rigging  are  increased  by 
the  darkness.  Straightway  the  captain's  big,  manly 
voice  is  heard  above  the  war-whoop  of  the  gale,  ring- 
ing out  as  Signor  Badiali's  was  wont  to  in  the  third 
act  of  Ernani.  The  wind  seems  to  pin  the  men  to  the 
ratlines  as  they  clamber  up;  but  all  the  difficulties  are 
overcome  at  length;  the  broken  mast  is  lowered 
down,  and  snugly  stowed  away;  and  before  nine 
o'clock  all  is  quiet,  except  the  howling  wind,  which 
seems  to  have  determined  to  make  a  night  of  it.  And 
such  a  night !  It  is  one  of  those  times  that  make  one 
want  one's  mother.  There  is  little  sleeping  done 
except  among  the  "watch  below"  in  the  forecastle, 
who  snore  away  their  four  hours  as  if  they  appre- 


A  PASSAGE  ACROSS  THE  ATLANTIC 

dated  the  reasoning  of  Mr.  Dibdin  when  he  extols 
the  safety  of  the  open  sea  as  compared  with  the  town 
with  its  falling  chimneys  and  flying  tiles,  and  com- 
miserates the  condition  of  the  unhappy  shore-folks  in 
such  a  tempestuous  time.  The  thumping  of  the  sea 
against  our  wooden  walls,  the  swash  of  water  on 
deck  as  the  ship  rolls  and  pitches  as  you  would  think 
it  impossible  for  any  thing  addicted  to  the  cold  water 
movement  to  roll  or  pitch,  and  over  all  the  wild, 
changeless,  shrieking  of  the  gale,  will  not  suffer  sleep 
to  visit  those  who  are  not  inured  to  such  things. 
Tired  of  bracing  up  with  knee,  and  hand,  and  heel, 
to  keep  in  their  berths,  they  lie  and  wonder  how 
many  such  blows  as  that  our  good  ship  could  endure, 
and  think  that  if  June  gets  up  such  gales  on  the 
North  Atlantic,  they  have  no  wish  to  try  the  quality 
of  those  of  January. 

Morning  comes  at  last,  and  every  heart  is  cheered 
by  the  captain's  announcement,  as  he  passes  through 
the  cabin,  that  the  barometer  is  rising,  and  the 
weather  has  begun  to  improve.  Some  of  the  more 
hopeful  and  energetic  of  our  company  turn  out  and 
repair  to  the  deck.  The  leaden  clouds  are  broken 
up,  and  the  sun  trying  to  struggle  through  them ;  but 
to  the  inexperienced  the  gale  appears  to  be  as  severe 
as  it  was  yesterday.  All  the  discomfort  and  danger 
of  the  time  are  forgotten,  however,  in  the  fearful 
magnificence  of  the  spectacle  that  surrounds  us.  As 
far  as  the  eye  can  reach  it  seems  like  a  confused  field 
of  battle,  where  snowy  plumes  and  white  flowing 
manes  show  where  the  shock  of  war  is  felt  most 
severely.  To  watch  the  gathering  of  one  of  those 
mighty  seas  that  so  often  work  destruction  with  the 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

noblest  ships, — to  see  it  gradually  piling  up  until  it 
seems  to  be  impelled  by  a  fury  almost  intelligent,— 
to  be  dazzled  by  its  emerald  flash  when  it  erects  its 
stormy  head  the  highest,  and  breaks  into  a  field  of 
boiling  foam,  as  if  enraged  at  being  unable  to  reach 
us;— these  are  things  which  are  worth  all  the  anxiety 
and  peril  that  they  cost. 

The  captain's  prognostications  prove  correct. 
Our  appetites  at  dinner  bear  witness  to  them;  and 
before  sunset  we  find  our  ship  (curtailed  of  its  fair 
proportion,  it  is  true,  by  the  loss  of  its  main-top-gal- 
lant-mast) is  under  full  sail  once  more.  The  next 
day  we  have  a  few  hours'  calm,  and  when  a  light 
breeze  does  spring  up,  it  comes  from  the  old  easterly 
quarter.  It  begins  to  seem  as  if  we  were  fated  to  sail 
forever,  and  never  get  any  where.  But  patience 
wears  out  even  a  head  wind,  and  at  last  the  long- 
looked-for  change  takes  place.  The  wind  slowly 
hauls  to  the  south,  and  many  are  the  looks  taken  at 
the  compass  to  see  how  nearly  the  ship  can  come  up 
to  her  course.  Then  our  impatience  is  somewhat 
allayed  by  speaking  a  ship  which  has  been  out  twelve 
days  longer  than  our  own — for,  if  it  be  true,  as 
Rochefoucauld  says,  that  "there  is  something  not 
unpleasing  to  us  in  the  misfortunes  of  our  best 
friends," — how  keen  must  be  the  satisfaction  of  find- 
ing a  stranger-companion  In  adversity.  The  wind, 
though  steady,  is  not  very  strong,  and  many  fears 
are  expressed  lest  it  should  die  away  and  give  Eurus 
another  three  weeks'  chance.  But  our  forebodings 
are  not  realized,  and  a  sunshiny  day  comes  when  we 
are  all  called  up  from  dinner  to  see  a  long  cloud-like 
affair,  (very  like  a  whale,)  which,  we  are  told,  is  the 


A  PASSAGE  ACROSS  THE  ATLANTIC 

Old  Head  of  Kinsale.  Straightway  all  begin  to  talk 
of  getting  on  shore  the  next  day;  but  when  that 
comes,  we  find  that  we  are  drawing  towards  Holy- 
head  very  rapidly,  as  our  favourable  wind  has  in- 
creased to  a  gale — so  that  when  we  have  got  round 
Holyhead,  and  have  taken  our  pilot,  (that  burly 
visitor  whose  coming  every  one  welcomes,  and  whose 
departure  every  one  would  speed,)  the  aforesaid 
pilot  heaves  the  ship  to,  and,  having  a  bed  made  up 
on  the  cabin  floor,  composes  himself  to  sleep.  The 
next  morning  finds  the  gale  abated,  and  early  in  the 
forenoon  we  are  running  up  to  the  mouth  of  the 
river.  The  smoke  (that  first  premonitory  symptom 
of  an  English  town)  hangs  over  Liverpool,  and 
forms  a  strong  contrast  with  the  bright  gre.en  fields 
and  verdant  hedges  which  deck  the  banks  of  the 
Mersey.  The  ship,  after  an  immense  amount  of  vocal 
power  has  been  expended  in  that  forcible  diction 
which  may  be  termed  the  marine  vernacular,  is  got 
into  dock,  and  in  the  afternoon  a  passage  of  thirty- 
three  days  is  concluded  by  our  stepping  once  more 
upon  the  "inviolate  island  of  the  sage  and  free,"  and 
following  our  luggage  up  the  pier,  with  a  swing  in 
our  gait  which  any  stage  sailor  would  have  viewed 
with  envy.  The  examination  at  the  Custom  House 
is  conducted  with  a  politeness  and  despatch  worthy  of 
imitation  among  the  officials  of  our  Uncle  Samuel. 
The  party  of  passengers  disperses  itself  about  in  va- 
rious hotels,  without  any  circumstance  to  hinder  their 
progress  except  falling  in  with  an  exhibition  of  Punch 
and  Judy,  which  makes  the  company  prolific  in 
quotations  from  the  sayings  of  Messrs.  Codlin  and 
Short,  and  at  last  the  family  which  never  had  its 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

harmonious  unity  disturbed  by  any  thing,  is  broken 
up  forever. 

Liverpool  wears  its  old  thriving  commercial  look 
— perhaps  it  is  a  few  shades  darker  with  smoke.  The 
posters  are  on  a  more  magnificent  scale,  both  as  re- 
gards size  and  colour,  than  ever  before,  and  tell  not 
only  of  the  night's  amusements,  but  promise  the  ac- 
quisition of  wealth  outrunning  the  dreams  of  avarice 
in  lands  beyond  the  farthest  Thule.  Melbourne  and 
Port  Philip  vie  in  the  most  gorgeous  colours  with 
San  Francisco;  and  the  United  States  seem  to  have 
spread  wide  their  capacious  arms  to  welcome  the 
down-trodden  Irishman.  Liverpool  seems  to  be  the 
gate  to  all  the  rest  of  the  world.  I  almost  fear  to 
walk  about  lest  I  should  find  myself  starting  off,  in  a 
moment  of  temporary  insanity,  for  Greenland's  icy 
mountains,  or  India's  coral  strand. 


LONDON 

DULL  must  he  be  of  soul  who  could  make  the 
journey  from  Liverpool  to  the  metropolis  in 
the  month  of  June,  and  not  be  lifted  above  himself 
by  the  surpassing  loveliness  of  dear  mother  Nature. 
Even  if  he  were  chained  to  a  ledger  and  cash  book — 
if  he  never  had  a  thought  or  wish  beyond  the  brok- 
er's board,  and  his  entire  reading  were  the  prices 
current — he  must  forget  them  all,  and  feel  for  the 
time  what  a  miserable  sham  his  life  is — or  he  does 
not  deserve  the  gift  of  sight.  It  is  Thackeray,  I 
think,  who  speaks  somewhere  of  the  "charming 
friendly  English  landscape  that  seems  to  shake  hands 
with  you  as  you  pass  along"  —  and  any  body  who  has 
seen  it  in  June  will  say  that  this  is  hardly  a  figurative 
expression.  I  used  to  think  that  it  was  my  enthusi- 
astic love  for  the  land  of  the  great  Alfred  which 
made  it  seem  so  beautiful  to  me  when  I  was  younger; 
but  I  find  that  it  wears  too  well  to  be  a  mere  fancy 
of  my  own  brain.  People  may  complain  of  the  humid 
climate  of  England,  and  curse  the  umbrella  which 
must  accompany  them  whenever  they  walk  out;  but 
when  the  sun  does  shine,  it  shines  upon  a  scene  of 
beautiful  fertility  unequalled  elsewhere  in  the  world, 
and  which  the  moist  climate  produces  and  preserves. 
And  then,  too,  it  seems  doubly  grateful  to  the  eyes  of 
one  just  come  from  sea.  The  bright  freshness  of 
the  whole  landscape,  the  varied  tints  of  green,  the 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

trim  hedges,  the  luxuriant  foliage  which  springs  from 
the  very  trunks  of  the  trees,  and  the  high  state  of 
cultivation  which  makes  the  whole  country  look  as  if 
it  had  been  swept  and  dusted  that  morning,  — all 
these  things  strike  an  American,  for  he  cannot  help 
contrasting  them  with  the  parched  fields  of  his  own 
land  in  summer,  surrounded  by  their  rough  fences 
and  hastily  piled-up  stone  walls.  The  solidity  of  the 
houses  and  cottages,  which  look  as  if  they  were  built, 
not  for  an  age,  but  for  all  time,  makes  him  think  of 
the  country  houses  of  America,  which  seem  to  have 
grown  up  in  a  night,  like  our  friend  Aladdin's,  and 
whose  frailty  is  so  apparent  that  you  cannot  sneeze 
in  one  of  them  without  apprehending  a  serious  ca- 
lamity. Then  the  embankments  of  the  railways 
present  not  only  a  pleasant  sight  to  the  eye  of  the 
traveller,  but  a  pretty  little  hay  crop  to  the  corpora- 
tion; and  at  every  station,  and  bridge,  and  crossing, 
wherever  there  is  a  switch  to  be  tended,  you  see  the 
neat  cottages  of  the  keepers,  and  the  gardens  thereof 
— the  railway  companies  having  learned  that  the  ex- 
penditure of  a  few  hundred  pounds  in  this  way  saves 
an  expenditure  of  many  thousands  in  surgeons'  bills 
and  damages,  and  is  far  more  satisfactory  to  all  con- 
cerned. 

What  a  charming  sight  is  a  cow — what  a  look  of 
contentment  she  has — ambitious  of  nothing  beyond 
the  field  of  daily  duty,  and  never  looking  happier 
than  when  she  comes  at  night  to  yield  a  plenteousness 
of  that  fluid  without  which  custards  were  an  impos- 
sibility! Wordsworth  says  that  "heaven  lies  about 
us  in  our  infancy" — surely  he  must  mean  that  portion 
of  the  heavens  called  by  astronomers  the  Milky  Way. 

C20J 


LONDON 

It  is  pleasant  to  see  a  cow  by  the  side  of  a  railway — 
provided  she  is  fenced  from  danger — to  see  her  lift 
her  head  slowly  as  the  train  goes  whizzing  by,  and 
gaze  with  those  mild,  tranquil  eyes  upon  the  noisy, 
smoke-puffing  monster, — just  as  the  saintly  hermits 
of  olden  times  might  have  looked  from  their  serene 
heights  of  contemplation  upon  the  dusty,  bustling 
world.  The  taste  of  the  English  farmers  for  fine 
cattle  is  attested  by  a  glance  at  any  of  their  pastures. 
On  every  side  you  see  the  representatives  of  Alder- 
ney's  bovine  aristocracy;  and  scores  of  cattle  crop 
the  juicy  grass,  rivalling  in  their  snowy  whiteness  any 
that  ever  reclined  upon  Clitumno's  "mild  declivity  of 
hill,"  or  admired  their  graceful  horns  in  its  clear 
waters.  Until  I  saw  them,  I  never  comprehended 
what  farmers  meant  when  they  spoke  of  "neat 
cattle." 

What  an  eloquent  preacher  is  an  old  church-tower ! 
Moss-crowned  and  ivy-robed,  it  lifts  its  head,  un- 
shaken by  the  tempests  of  centuries,  as  it  did  in  the 
days  when  King  John  granted  the  Great  Charter  or 
the  holy  Edward  ruled  the  realm,  and  tells  of  the 
ages  when  England  was  one  in  faith,  and  not  a  poor- 
house  existed  throughout  the  land.  Like  a  faithful 
sentinel,  it  stands  guard  over  the  humbler  edifices 
around  it,  and  warns  their  inhabitants  alike  of  their 
dangers  and  their  duties  by  the  music  of  its  bells. 
Erect  in  silent  dignity,  it  receives  the  first  beams  of 
the  morning,  and  when  twilight  has  begun  to  shroud 
every  thing  in  its  neighbourhood,  the  flash  of  sunset 
lingers  on  its  gray  summit.  It  looks  down  with  sub- 
lime indifference  upon  the  changing  scene  below,  as  if 
it  would  reproach  the  actors  there  with  their  forget- 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

fulness  of  the  transitoriness  of  human  pursuits,  and 
remind  them,  by  its  unchangeableness,  of  the  eternal 
years. 

At  last  we  draw  near  London.  A  gentleman, 
whose  age  I  would  not  attempt  to  guess,  —  for  he  was 
very  carefully  made  up,  and  boasted  a  deportment 
which  would  have  excited  the  envy  of  Mr.  Turvey- 
drop,  senior, — so  far  forgot  his  dignity  as  to  lean 
forward  and  inform  me  that  the  place  we  were  pass- 
ing was  "  'Arrow  on  the  '111,"  which  made  me  forget 
for  the  moment  both  his  appearance  and  his  un- 
called-for "exasperation  of  the  haitches."  Not  long 
after,  I  found  myself  issuing  from  the  magnificent 
terminus  of  the  North  Western  Railway,  in  Euston 
Square,  in  a  cab  marked  V.  R.  10,276.  The  cab  and 
omnibus  drivers  of  London  are  a  distinct  race  of 
beings.  Who  can  write  their  natural  history?  Who 
is  competent  to  such  a  task?  The  researches  of  a 
Pritchard,  a  Pickering,  a  Smyth,  would  seem  to 
cover  the  whole  subject  of  the  history  of  the  human 
species  from  the  anthropophagi  and  bosjesmen  to  the 
drinkers  of  train  oil  in  the  polar  regions ;  but  the  cab- 
men are  not  included.  They  would  require  a  master 
mind.  The  subject  would  demand  the  patient  in- 
vestigation of  a  Humboldt,  the  eloquence  of  a 
Macaulay,  and  the  humour  of  a  Dickens— and  even 
then  would  fall  short,  I  fear,  of  giving  an  adequate 
idea  of  them.  Your  London  cab  driver  has  no  idea 
of  distance;  as,  for  instance,  I  ask  one  the  simple 
question, — 

"How  far  is  it  to  the  Angel  in  Islington?" 

"Wot,  sir?" 

I  repeat  my  interrogatory. 


LONDON 

"Oh,  the  Hangel,  sir!    Four  shillings." 

"No,  no.    I  mean  what  distance." 

"Well,  say  three,  then,  sir." 

"But  I  mean— what  distance  ?  How  many  miles?" 

"O,  come,  sir,  jump  in— don't  be  'ard  on  a  fellow 
—  I  'aven't  'ad  a  fare  to-day.  Call  it  'arf  a  crown, 
sir." 

Leigh  Hunt  says  somewhere  that  if  there  were 
such  a  thing  as  metamorphosis,  Dr.  Johnson  would 
desire  to  be  transformed  into  an  omnibus,  that  he 
might  go  rolling  along  the  streets  whose  very  pave- 
ments were  the  objects  of  his  ardent  affection.  And 
he  was  about  right.  What  better  place  is  there  in 
this  world  to  study  human  nature  than  an  omnibus? 
All  classes  meet  there;  in  the  same  coach  you  may 
see  them  all — from  the  poor  workwoman  to  the  gen- 
teelly dressed  lady,  who  looks  as  if  she  disapproved 
of  such  conveyances,  but  must  ride  nevertheless — 
from  the  young  sprig,  who  is  constantly  anxious  lest 
some  profane  foot  should  dim  the  polish  of  his 
boots,  to  the  urbane  old  gentleman,  who  regrets  his 
corpulence,  and  would  take  less  room  if  he  could. 
And  then  the  top  of  the  omnibus,  which  usually  car- 
ries four  or  more  passengers,  what  a  place  is  that  to 
see  the  tide  of  life  which  flows  unceasingly  through 
the  streets  of  London !  I  know  of  nothing  which  c^n 
furnish  more  food  for  thought  than  a  ride  on  an 
omnibus  from  Brompton  to  the  Bank  on  a  fine  day. 
It  is  a  pageant,  in  which  all  the  wealth,  pomp,  power, 
and  prosperity  of  this  world  pass  before  you ;  and  for 
a  moral  to  the  whirling  scene,  you  must  go  to  the 
nearest  churchyard. 

London  is  ever  the  same.    The  omnibuses  follow 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

each  other  as  rapidly  as  ever  up  and  down  the 
Strand,  the  white-gloved,  respectable-looking  police- 
men walk  about  as  deliberately,  and  the  tail  of  the 
lion  over  the  gate  of  Northumberland  House  sticks 
out  as  straight  as  ever.  The  only  great  change  vis- 
ible here  is  in  the  newspapers.  The  tone  of  society 
is  so  different  from  what  it  was  formerly,  in  all  that 
concerns  France,  that  the  editors  must  experience 
considerable  trouble  in  accustoming  themselves  to  the 
new  state  of  things.  Once,  France  and  Louis  Na- 
poleon furnished  Punch  with  his  chief  materials  for 
satire  and  amusement,  and  if  any  of  the  larger  and 
more  dignified  journals  wished  to  let  off  a  little  ill 
humour,  or  to  say  any  thing  particularly  bitter,  they 
only  had  to  dip  their  pens  in  Gaul;  but  times  are 
changed,  and  now  nothing  can  be  said  too  strong  in 
favour  of  "our  chivalric  allies,  the  French."  The 
memory  of  St.  Helena  seems  to  have  given  place  to 
what  they  call  here  the  entente  cordiale,  which  those 
who  are  acquainted  with  the  French  language  assure 
me  means  an  agreement  by  which  one  party  contracts 
to  "play  second  fiddle"  to  another,  through  fear  that 
if  he  does  not  he  will  not  be  permitted  to  play  at  all. 
To  the  man  who  thoroughly  appreciates  the  Es- 
says of  Elia,  and  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson,  London 
can  never  grow  tiresome.  He  can  never  turn  a  cor- 
ner without  finding  "something  new,  something  to 
please,  and  something  to  instruct."  Its  very  pave- 
ments are  classical.  And  there  is  nothing  to  abate, 
nor  detract  from,  such  a  man's  enthusiasm.  The 
traveller  who  visits  the  Roman  Forum,  or  the  Palace 
of  the  Caesars,  experiences  a  sad  check  when  he  finds 
his  progress  impeded  by  unpoetical  obstacles.  But 


LONDON 

in  London,  all  is  harmonious;  he  sees  on  every  side, 
not  only  that  which  tells  of  present  life  and  pros- 
perity, but  the  perennial  glories  of  England's  former 
days.  Would  he  study  history,  he  goes  to  the  Tower, 
"rich  with  the  spoils  of  time" ;  or  to  Whitehall, 
where  mad  fanaticism  consummated  its  treasonable 
•work  with  the  murder  of  a  sovereign;  or  to  the  tow- 
ering minster,  to  gaze  upon  the  chair  in  which  the 
monarchs  of  a  thousand  years  have  sat;  or  to  view 
the  monuments,  and  read  the  epitaphs,  of  that  host  of 

"Bards,  heroes,  sages,  side  by  side, 
Who  darkened  nations  when  they  died." 

Is  he  a  lover  of  English  literature?  Here  are  scenes 
eloquent  of  that  goodly  company  of  wits  and 
worthies,  whose  glowing  pages  have  been  the  delight 
of  his  youth  and  the  consolation  of  his  riper  years; 
here  are  the  streets  in  which  they  walked,  the  taverns 
in  which  they  feasted,  the  churches  where  they 
prayed,  the  tombs  where  they  repose. 

And  London  wears  well.  To  revisit  it  when  age 
has  sobered  down  the  enthusiasm  of  youth,  is  not 
like  seeing  a  theatre  by  daylight;  but  you  think  al- 
most that  you  have  under-estimated  your  privileges. 
How  well  I  remember  the  night  when  I  first  arrived 
in  the  metropolis!  It  was  after  ten  o'clock,  and  I 
was  much  fatigued;  but  before  I  booked  myself  in 
my  hotel,  or  looked  at  my  room,  I  rushed  out  into 
the  Strand,  "with  breathless  speed,  like  a  soul  in 
chase."  I  pushed  along,  now  turning  to  look  at 
Temple  Bar,  now  pausing  to  take  breath  as  I  went 
up  Ludgate  Hill.  I  saw  St.  Paul's  and  its  dome  be- 
fore me,  and  I  was  satisfied.  No,  I  was  not  satis- 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

fied;  for  when  I  returned  up  Fleet  Street,  I  looked 
out  dear  old  Bolt  Court,  and  entered  its  Johnsonian 
precincts  with  an  awe  and  veneration  which  a  devout 
Mussulman,  taking  the  early  train  for  Mecca,  would 
gladly  imitate.  And  then  I  posted  down  Inner  Tem- 
ple Lane,  and  looked  at  the  house  in  which  Charles 
Lamb  and  his  companions  held  their  "Wednesday 
nights";  and,  going  still  farther,  I  saw  the  river — I 
stood  on  the  bank  of  the  Thames,  and  I  was  satis- 
fied. I  looked,  and  all  the  associations  of  English 
history  and  literature  which  are  connected  with  it 
filled  my  mind — but  just  as  I  was  getting  into  a  fine 
frenzy  about  it,  a  watchman  hove  in  sight,  and  the 
old  clock  chimed  out  eleven.  So  I  started  on,  and 
soon  reached  my  hotel.  I  was  accosted  on  my  way 
thither  by  a  young  and  gayly  dressed  lady,  whom  I 
did  not  remember  ever  to  have  seen  before,  but  who 
expressed  her  satisfaction  at  meeting  me,  in  the  most 
cordial  terms.  I  told  her  that  I  thought  that  it  must 
be  a  mistake,  and  she  responded  with  a  laugh  which 
very  much  shocked  an  elderly  gentleman  who  was 
passing,  who  looked  as  if  he  might  have  been  got  up 
for  the  part  of  the  uncle  of  the  unhappy  G.  Barnwell. 
I  have  since  learned  that  such  mistakes  and  personal 
misapprehensions  very  frequently  occur  in  London  in 
the  evening. 

Speaking  of  Temple  Bar,  it  gratifies  me  to  see  that 
this  venerable  gateway  still  stands,  "unshaken,  un- 
seduced,  unterrified,"  by  any  of  the  recent  attempts 
to  effect  its  removal.  The  old  battered  and  splashed 
doors  are  perhaps  more  unsightly  than  before;  but 
the  statues  look  down  with  the  same  benignity  upon 
the  crowd  of  cabs  and  omnibuses,  and  the  never- 

£263 


LONDON 

ending  tide  of  humanity  which  flows  beneath  them, 
as  they  did  upon  the  Rake's  Progress,  so  many  years 
ago.  The  sacrilegious  commissioners  of  streets  long 
to  get  at  it  with  their  crows  and  picks,  but  the  shade 
of  Dr.  Johnson  watches  over  the  barrier  of  his 
earthly  home.  It  is  not  an  ornamental  affair,  to  be 
sure,  and  it  would  be  difficult  for  Mr.  Choate,  even, 
to  defend  it  against  the  charge  of  being  an  obstruc- 
tion; but  its  associations  with  the  literature  and  his- 
tory of  the  last  two  or  three  centuries  ought  to  entitle 
its  dingy  arches  to  a  certain  degree  of  reverence, 
even  in  our  progressive  and  irreverent  age.  The 
world  would  be  a  loser  by  the  demolition  of  this  an- 
cient landmark,  and  London,  if  it  should  lose  this, 
though  it  might  still  be  the  metropolis  of  the  British 
empire,  would  cease  to  be  the  London  of  Johnson 
and  Goldsmith,  of  Addison  and  Pope,  of  Swift  and 
Hogarth. 

Perhaps  some  may  think,  from  what  I  have  said 
in  the  commencement  of  this  letter,  that  my  enthusi- 
asm has  blinded  me  to  those  great  moral  and  social 
evils  which  are  apparent  in  English  civilization :  but 
it  is  not  so.  I  love  England  rather  for  what  she  has 
been  than  for  what  she  is;  I  love  the  England  of 
Alfred  and  St.  Edward;  and  when  I  contrast  the 
present  state  with  what  it  might  have  been  under  a 
succession  of  such  rulers,  I  cannot  but  grieve.  Truly 
the  court  of  St.  James  under  Victoria  is  not  what  it 
was  under  Charles  II.,  nor  even  under  Mr.  Thack- 
eray's favourite  hero,  "the  great  George  IV.," — but 
are  not  St.  James  and  St.  Giles  farther  apart  than 
ever  before?  Is  not  Lazarus  looked  upon  as  a 
nuisance,  which  legislation  ought,  for  decency's  sake, 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

to  put  out  of  the  way?  What  does  England  do  for 
the  poor?  Nothing;  absolutely  nothing,  if  you  ex- 
cept a  system  of  workhouses,  compared  with  which 
prisons  are  delightful  residences,  and  which  seems  to 
have  been  intended  more  for  the  punishment  of  pov- 
erty than  as  a  work  of  charity.  No ;  on  the  contrary, 
she  discountenances  works  of  charity;  when  a  few 
earnest  men  among  the  clergy  of  her  divided  church 
make  an  effort  in  that  direction,  there  is  an  outcry, 
and  they  must  be  put  down;  and  their  bishops,  whose 
annual  incomes  are  larger  than  the  whole  treasury  of 
Alfred,  admonish  them  to  beware  how  they  thus 
imitate  the  superstitions  of  the  middle  ages.  No; 
your  Englishman  of  the  present  day  has  something 
better  to  do  than  to  look  after  the  beggar  at  his  door- 
step; he  is  too  respectable  a  man  for  that;  he  pays 
his  "poor  rates,"  and  the  police  must  order  the  thing 
of  shreds  and  patches  to  "move  on" ;  his  progress 
must  not  be  impeded,  for  his  presence  is  required  at 
a  meeting  of  the  friends  of  Poland,  or  of  Italy,  or  of 
a  society  for  the  abolition  of  American  slavery,  and 
he  has  no  time  to  waste  on  such  common,  every- 
day matters  as  the  improvement  of  the  miserable 
wretches  who  work  his  coal  mines,  or  of  those  quar- 
ters of  the  town  where  vice  parades  its  deformity 
with  exulting  pride,  and  the  air  is  heavy  with  pesti- 
lence. There  is  proportionably  more  beggary  in 
London  at  this  hour  than  in  any  continental  city.  And 
such  beggary!  Not  the  comfortable,  jolly-looking 
beggars  you  may  see  in  Rome  or  Naples,  who  know 
that  charity  is  enjoined  upon  the  people  as  a  religious 
duty,  but  the  thin,  pallid,  high-cheeked  supplicants, 
whose  look  is  a  petition  which  tells  a  more  effective 


LONDON 

story  than  words  can  frame  of  destitution  and  star- 
vation. 

But  there  is  another  phase  of  this  part  of  London 
life,  sadder  by  far  than  that  of  mere  poverty.  It  is 
an  evil  which  no  attempt  is  made  to  prevent,  and  so 
great  an  evil  that  its  very  mention  is  forbidden  by  the 
spirit  of  this  age  of  "superficial  morality  and  skin- 
deep  propriety."  I  pity  the  man  who  can  walk 
through  Regent  Street  or  the  Strand  in  the  evening, 
unsaddened  by  what  he  shall  see  on  every  side.  How 
ridiculous  do  our  boasts  of  this  Christian  nineteenth 
century  seem  there!  Here  is  this  mighty  Anglo- 
Saxon  race,  which  can  build  steam  engines,  and  tele- 
graphs, and  clipper  ships,  which  tunnels  mountains, 
and  exerts  an  almost  incredible  mastery  over  the 
forces  of  nature,  —  and  yet,  when  Magdalene  looks 
up  to  it  for  a  merciful  hand  to  lift  her  from  degrada- 
tion and  sin,  she  finds  it  either  deaf  or  powerless. 
There  is  a  work  yet  to  be  done  in  London  which 
would  stagger  a  philanthropist,  if  he  were  gifted 
with  thrice  the  heroism,  and  patience,  and  self-for- 
getfulness  of  a  St.  Vincent  of  Paul. 

I  cannot  resist  the  inclination  to  give  in  this  con- 
nection a  passage  from  the  personal  experience  of  a 
friend  in  London,  which,  had  I  read  it  in  any  book 
or  newspaper,  I  should  have  hesitated  to  believe. 
One  evening,  as  he  was  passing  along  Pall  Mall,  he 
was  addressed  by  a  young  woman,  who, 'when  she 
saw  that  he  was  going  to  pass  on  and  take  no  notice 
of  her,  ran  before  him,  and  said  in  a  tone  of  the 
most  pathetic  earnestness, — 

"Well,  if  you'll  not  go  with  me,  for  God's  sake, 
sir,  give  me  a  trifle  to  buy  bread!" 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

Thus  appealed  to,  and  somewhat  shaken  by  the 
voice  and  manner,  he  stopped  under  a  gaslight,  and 
looked  at  the  speaker.  Vice  had  not  impressed  its 
distinctive  seal  so  strongly  upon  her  as  upon  most  of 
the  unfortunate  creatures  one  meets  in  London's 
streets;  indeed,  there  was  a  shade  of  melancholy  on 
her  face  which  harmonized  well  with  her  voice  and 
manner.  So  my  friend  resolved  to  have  a  few  words 
more  with  her,  and  buttoning  up  his  coat,  to  protect 
his  watch  and  purse,  he  told  her  that  he  feared  she 
wanted  money  to  buy  gin  rather  than  bread.  She 
assured  him  that  it  was  not  so,  but  that  she  wished  to 
buy  food  for  her  little  child,  a  girl  of  two  or  three 
years.  Then  he  asked  how  she  could  lead  such  a  life, 
if  she  had  a  child  growing  up,  upon  whom  her  ex- 
ample would  have  such  an  influence;  and  she  said 
that  she  would  gladly  take  up  with  an  honest  occupa- 
tion, if  she  could  find  one, — indeed,  she  did  try  to 
earn  enough  for  the  daily  wants  of  herself  and  child 
with  her  needle,  but  it  was  impossible,  —  and  her  only 
choice  was  between  starvation  and  the  street.  At 
that  time  she  said  that  she  was  learning  the  trade  of 
a  dressmaker,  and  she  hoped  that  before  long  she 
should  be  able  to  keep  herself  above  absolute  neces- 
sity. Encouraged  by  a  kind  word  from  my  friend, 
she  went  on  in  a  simple,  womanly  manner,  and  told 
him  of  her  whole  career.  It  was  the  old  story  of 
plighted  troth,  betrayed  affection,  and  flight  from 
her  village  home,  to  escape  the  shame  and  reproach 
she  would  there  be  visited  with.  She  arrived  in  Lon- 
don without  money,  without  friends,  without  employ- 
ment,—without  any  thing  save  that  natural  womanly 
self-respect  which  had  received  such  a  severe  blow: 

1301 


LONDON 

—necessity  stared  her  in  the  face,  and  she  sank  be- 
fore it.  My  friend  was  impressed  by  the  recital  of 
her  misfortunes,  and  thinking  that  she  must  be  sin- 
cere, he  took  a  sovereign  from  his  purse  and  gave  it 
to  her.  She  looked  from  the  gift  to  the  giver,  and 
thanked  him  again  and  again.  He  continued  his 
walk,  but  had  not  gone  more  than  three  or  four  rods, 
when  she  came  running  after  him,  and  reiterated  her 
expressions  of  thankfulness  with  a  trembling  voice. 
He  then  walked  on,  and  crossed  over  to  the  front  of 
the  Church  of  St.  Martin,  (that  glorious  soldier  who 
with  his  sword  divided  his  cloak  with  the  beggar,) 
when  she  came  after  him  yet  again,  and  seizing  hold 
of  his  hand,  she  looked  up  at  him  with  stream- 
ing eyes,  and  said,  holding  the  sovereign  in  her 
hand, — 

"God  bless  you,  sir,  again  and  again  for  your  kind- 
ness to  me !  Pray  pardon  me,  sir,  for  troubling  you 
so  much — but — but— perhaps  you  meant  to  give  me  a 
shilling,  sir, — perhaps  you  don't  know  that  you  gave 
me  a  sovereign." 

How  many  models  of  propriety  and  respectability 
in  every  rank  of  life, — how  many  persons  who  have 
the  technical  language  of  religion  constantly  on  their 
lips, — how  many  of  those  who,  nurtured  amid  the 
influences  of  a  good  home,  have  never  really  known 
what  temptation  is, — how  many  such  persons  are 
there  who  might  learn  a  startling  lesson  from  this 
fallen  woman,  whom  they  seem  to  consider  them- 
selves religiously  bound  to  despise  and  neglect !  I 
have  a  great  dread  of  these  severely  virtuous  people, 
who  are  so  superior  to  all  human  frailty  that  they 
cannot  afford  a  kind  word  to  those  who  have  not  the 

CsO 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

good  fortune  to  be  impeccable.  But  we  all  of  us,  I 
fear,  need  to  be  reminded  of  Burns's  lines— 

"What's  done  we  partly  may  compute, 
But  know  not  what's  resisted." 

If  we  thought  of  this,  keeping  our  own  weaknesses 
in  view,  which  of  us  would  not  shrink  from  judging 
uncharitably,  or  casting  the  first  stone  at  an  erring 
fellow-creature?  Which  of  us  would  dare  to  con- 
demn the  poor  girl  who  preserved  so  much  of  the 
spirit  of  honesty  in  her  degradation,  and  to  commend 
the  negative  virtues  which  make  up  so  many  of  what 
the  world  calls  good  lives? 


ANTWERP  AND   BRUSSELS 

IT  is  a  very  pleasant  thing  to  get  one's  passport 
•vised  (even  though  a  pretty  good  fee  is  de- 
manded for  it,)  and  to  make  preparations  for  leav- 
ing London,  at  almost  any  time ;  but  it  is  particularly 
so  when  the  weather  has  been  doing  its  worst  for  a 
fortnight,  and  the  atmosphere  is  so  "thick  and  slab" 
that  to  compare  it  to  pea-soup  would  be  doing  that 
excellent  compound  a  great  injustice.  It  is  very 
pleasant  to  think  of  getting  out  from  under  that 
blanket  of  smoke  and  fog,  and  escaping  to  a  land 
where  the  sun  shines  occasionally,  and  where  the 
manners  of  the  people  make  a  perpetual  sunshine 
which  renders  you  independent  of  the  weather.  If 
there  ever  was  a  day  to  which  that  expressive  old 
Saxon  epithet  nasty  might  be  justly  applied,  it  was 
the  one  on  which  I  left  the  greasy  pavements  of  Lon- 
don, and  (after  a  contest  with  a  cabman,  which 
ended,  as  such  things  generally  do,  in  a  compromise) 
found  myself  on  board  one  of  the  fast-sailing  packets 
of  the  General  Steam  Navigation  Company,  at  St. 
Catharine's  Wharf,  just  below  the  esplanade  of  the 
Tower.  The  beautiful  banks  of  the  river  below  the 
city,  the  fine  pile  of  buildings,  and  the  rich  foliage  of 
the  park  at  Greenwich,  seemed  to  have  laid  aside 
their  charms,  and  shrouded  themselves  in  mourning 
for  the  death  of  sunshine.  The  steamer  was  larger 
than  most  of  those  which  ply  in  the  Channel ;  but  the 

D33 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

crowded  cabins  and  diminutive  state-rooms  made  me 
think  with  envy  of  the  passengers  from  New  York  to 
Fall  River  that  afternoon.  And  there  was  a  want 
of  attention  to  those  details  which  would  have  im- 
proved the  appearance  of  the  boat  greatly — which 
made  me  wish  that  her  commander  might  have 
served  his  apprenticeship  on  Long  Island  Sound  or 
on  the  Hudson. 

The  company  was  composed  of  about  the  usual 
admixture  of  English  and  foreign  beauty  and  manli- 
ness; and  the  English,  French,  Dutch,  and  German 
languages  were  confounded  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
bring  to  mind  the  doings  of  the  committee  on  the 
construction  of  public  works  recorded  in  Genesis. 
Among  the  crowd  of  young  Cockneys  in  jockeyish- 
looking  caps,  with  travelling  pouches  strapped  to 
their  sides,  there  was  a  rather  tall  gentleman  in  a 
clerical  suit,  with  his  throat  covered  with  the  usual 
white  bandages.  His  highly  respectable  look,  and 
the  eminently  "evangelical"  expression  of  the  cor- 
ners of  his  mouth,  made  me  feel  quite  sure  that  I  had 
found  a  character.  He  had  three  little  boys  with 
him;  and  as  far  as  appearance  went,  he  might  have 
been  Dickens's  model  for  Dr.  Blimber,  (the  prin- 
cipal of  that  celebrated  academy  where  they  had 
mental  green  peas  and  intellectual  asparagus  all  the 
year  round,)  for  he  had  the  eye  of  a  pedagogue  "to 
threaten  and  command,"  and  his  fixed  look  was  the 
one  which  my  old  schoolmaster's  face  wore  when  he 
turned  up  his  wristbands,  and,  taking  his  ruler,  said, 
"I  am  very  sorry,  Andrew;  but  you  know  that  it  is 
for  your  good."  His  conversation  savoured  so 
strongly  of  the  dictionary,  that,  even  if  I  had  been 


ANTWERP  AND  BRUSSELS 

blind,  I  should  have  said  that  the  speaker  had  spent 
years  in  correcting  the  compositions  of  ingenuous 
youth.  I  shall  not  forget  his  look  of  wonder  when 
he  asked  one  of  the  engineers  what  was  the  matter 
with  a  dog  that  was  yelping  about  the  deck,  and  re- 
ceived for  a  reply  that  he  tumbled  off  the  quarter 
deck,  and  was  strained  in  the  garret.  However,  I 
enjoyed  two  or  three  hours'  conversation  with  him 
very  much— if  it  could  be  called  conversation  when 
he  did  all  the  talking. 

Towards  evening,  when  we  found  ourselves  in  the 
open  sea,  the  south-westerly  swell  rolled  up  finely 
from  the  Goodwin  Sands,  and  produced  a  scene  to 
remind  a  disinterested  spectator  of  Punch's  touching 
pictorial  representation  of  the  commencement  of  the 
continental  tour  of  Messrs.  Brown,  Jones,  and  Rob- 
inson. I  soon  perceived  that  a  conspicuous  collec- 
tion of  white  bowls,  which  adorned  the  main  saloon, 
was  not  a  mere  matter  of  ornament.  The  amount  of 
medicine  for  the  prevention  or  cure  of  seasickness, 
which  was  taken  by  my  fellow-voyagers  from  flat 
bottles  covered  with  wicker-work,  would  have  aston- 
ished the  most  ardent  upholder  of  the  old  allopathic 
practice.  But  all  the  pitching  and  rolling  of  the 
steamer,  and  the  varied  occupations  of  the  passen- 
gers, did  not  interfere  with  my  repose.  I  slept  as 
soundly  in  my  narrow  accommodations  as  if  I  had 
been  within  hearing  of  the  rattling  of  the  omnibuses 
of  my  native  city. 

The  next  morning  I  was  out  in  good  season;  and 
though  I  do  not  consider  myself  either  "remote," 
"unfriended,"  "melancholy,"  or  "slow,"  I  found  my- 
self upon  the  "lazy  Scheldt,"  with  Antwerp's  heaven- 

C353 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

kissing  spire  climbing  up  the  hazy  perspective.  The 
banks  of  the  Scheldt  are  not  very  picturesque;  in- 
deed, a  person  of  the  strongest  poetical  susceptibil- 
ities might  approach  Flanders  without  the  slightest 
apprehension  of  an  attack  of  his  weakness.  I  could 
not  help  congratulating  myself,  though,  on  having 
been  spared  to  see  the  country  which  was  immortal- 
ized by  the  profanity  of  a  great  military  force. 

We  Americans  usually  consider  ourselves  up  to  the 
times,  and  are  prone  to  sneer  at  Russia  for  being 
eleven  days  behind  the  age;  but  we  do  not  yet  "beat 
the  Dutch"  in  progress,  for  they  are  half  an  hour  in 
advance,  as  I  found,  very  soon  after  landing,  that  all 
the  church  clocks,  with  a  great  deal  of  formality  and 
precision,  struck  nine,  when  the  hands  only  pointed 
to  half  past  eight;  and  I  noted  a  similar  phenomenon 
while  I  was  taking  breakfast  an  hour  after.  Antwerp 
is  a  beautiful  old  city,  and  its  quiet  streets  are  very 
pleasant,  after  the  tumult  and  roar  of  London;  but— 
there  is  one  drawback— it  is  too  scrupulously  clean. 
I  almost  feared  to  walk  about,  lest  I  should  unknow- 
ingly do  some  damage ;  and  every  door-handle  and 
bell-pull  had  a  most  unhospitable  polish,  which 
seemed  to  say  with  the  placards  in  the  Crystal 
Palace,  "Please  not  to  handle."  Cleanliness  is  a 
great  virtue ;  but  when  it  is  carried  to  such  an  extent 
that  you  cannot  find  your  books  and  papers  which 
you  left  carefully  arranged  yesterday  on  your  table, 
—when  it  gets  to  be  a  monomania  with  man  or 
woman,— it  becomes  a  bore.  How  strangely  the 
first  two  or  three  hours  in  a  Dutch  town  strike  a 
stranger! — the  odd,  high-gabled  houses,  the  queer 
head-dresses,  (graceful  because  of  their  very  un- 


ANTWERP  AND  BRUSSELS 

gracefulness,)  the  wooden  shoes,  and  the  language, 
which  sounds  like  English  spoken  by  a  toothless  per- 
son. But  one  very  soon  gets  accustomed  to  it.  It  is 
like  being  in  an  Oriental  city,  where  the  great  variety 
of  costumes  and  languages,  and  the  different  manners 
of  the  people,  make  up  an  ensemble  which  a  stranger 
thinks  will  be  a  lasting  novelty;  but  on  his  second  day 
he  finds  himself  taking  about  as  much  notice  of  a 
Persian  caravan  as  he  would  of  a  Canton  Street  or 
Sixth  Avenue  omnibus. 

I  might  here  indulge  in  a  little  harmless  enthu- 
siasm about  this  grand  old  cathedral  of  Antwerp.  I 
might  talk  about  the  "long-drawn  aisle  and  fretted 
vault,"  and  give  an  elaborate  description  of  it, — its 
enormous  dimensions  and  artistic  glories, — if  I  did 
not  know  that  any  reader  who  desires  such  things  can 
find  them  set  down  with  greater  exactness  than  be- 
comes me,  in  any  of  the  guide  books  for  Belgium.  I 
spent  the  greater  proportion  of  my  waking  hours  in 
Antwerp  under  the  solemn  arches  of  that  majestic 
old  church.  I  wonder,  shall  we  ever  see  any  thing  in 
America  to  remind  us  even  faintly  of  the  glories  of 
Antwerp,  Cologne,  Rouen,  Amiens,  York,  or  Milan? 
I  fear  not.  The  ages  that  built  those  glorious  piles 
thought  less  of  fat  dividends  than  this  boastful  nine- 
teenth century  of  ours,  and  their  religion  was  not  the 
mere  one-day-out-of-seven  affair  that  the  improved 
Christianity  of  to-day  is.  The  architects  who  con- 
ceived and  executed  those  marvels  of  sublimity  never 
troubled  themselves  with  our  popular  query,  "Will  it 
pay?"  any  more  than  Dante  interrupted  the  inspi- 
ration of  his  Paradiso,  or  Beethoven  the  linked 
harmony  of  his  matchless  symphonies,  with  their 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

solicitude  about  the  amount  of  their  copyright.  No ; 
their  work  inspired  them,  and  while  it  reflected  their 
genius,  it  imparted  to  them  something  of  its  own 
divine  dignity.  Their  art  became  religion,  and  its 
laborious  processes  acts  of  the  most  fervent  devo- 
tion. But  we  have  reformed  all  that,  and  now  inspi- 
ration has  to  give  way  to  considerations  of  the 
greatest  number  of  "sittings,"  that  can  possibly  be 
provided,  and  if  the  expenses  of  the  sacred  enterprise 
can  be  lessened  by  contriving  accommodation  for 
shops  or  storage  in  the  basement,  who  does  not  re- 
joice? There  are  too  many  churches  nowadays  built 
upon  the  foundation  of  the  profits,  leaving  the  apos- 
tles entirely  out  of  the  question. 

But  while  I  lament  our  want  of  those  wonderful 
constructions  whose  very  stones  seem  to  have  grown 
consciously  into  forms  of  beauty,  I  must  record  my 
satisfaction  at  the  improvement  in  architectural  taste 
which  is  visible  in  most  of  our  cities  at  home.  If  we 
must  have  banks,  and  railway  stations,  and  shops,  it 
is  some  compensation  to  have  them  made  pleasant  to 
our  sight.  Buildings  are  the  books  that  every  body 
unconsciously  reads;  and  if  they  are  a  libel  on  the 
laws  of  architecture,  they  will  surely  vitiate  in  time 
the  taste  of  those  who  become  familiarized  to  their 
deformity.  Dr.  Johnson  said,  that  "if  a  man's 
hands  were  dirty,  his  thoughts  would  be  dirty";  and 
it  may  be  declared,  with  much  more  reason,  that 
those  who  are  obliged  to  look,  day  after  day,  at 
ungraceful,  mean,  and  unsubstantial  objects,  lose,  by 
degrees,  their  sense  of  the  beautiful  and  the  har- 
monious, and  set  forth,  in  the  poverty  of  their  minds, 
the  meanness  of  their  surroundings. 

[38] 


ANTWERP  AND  BRUSSELS 

On  one  account  I  have  again  and  again  blessed  the 
star  that  guided  me  to  Antwerp,— that  is,  for  the 
pleasure  afforded  me  by  its  treasures  of  art.  I  have, 
in  times  past,  fed  fat  my  appetite  for  the  beautiful  in 
the  galleries  of  Italy,  and  therefore  counted  but  little 
on  the  contents  of  the  museum  and  churches  of  this 
ancient  city.  Do  not  be  frightened,  beloved  reader; 
I  am  not  going  to  launch  out  into  the  muddy  stream 
of  artistic  criticism.  I  despise  most  of  that  which 
passes  current  under  that  dignified  name,  as  heartily 
as  you  do.  Even  the  laurels  of  Mr.  Ruskin  cannot 
rob  me  of  a  moment's  repose.  I  cannot  if  I  would, 
nor  would  I  if  I  could,  talk  learnedly  about  pictures. 
So  I  can  safely  promise  not  to  bore  you  with  any 
"breadth  of  colouring,"  and  to  keep  very  "shady" 
about  chiaro  'scuro.  I  only  wish  to  say  that  he  who 
has  never  been  in  Antwerp  does  not  know  who 
Rubens  was.  He  may  know  that  an  industrious 
painter  of  that  name  once  lived,  and  painted  (as  I 
used  to  think,  judging  from  most  of  his  works  that  I 
had  seen  elsewhere)  a  variety  of  fat,  flaxen-haired 
women;  but  of  Rubens,  the  great  master,  the  painter 
of  the  Crucifixion,  and  the  Descent  from  the  Cross, 
he  is  as  ignorant  as  a  fourth-form  boy  in  the  public 
schools  of  Patagonia.  It  is  worth  a  month  of  sea- 
sick voyaging  to  see  the  works  of  Rubens  and  Van- 
dyck  which  Antwerp  possesses;  and  the  only  regret 
connected  with  my  visit  there  has  been,  that  I  could 
not  give  more  days  to  the  study  of  them  than  I  could 
hours. 

It  is  but  fifteen  miles  from  Antwerp  to  Mechlin, 
or  Malines,  (as  the  people  here,  in  the  depths  of 
their  ignorance,  insist  upon  calling  it,)  and  as  a  rep- 

D9] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

resentative  of  a  nation  whose  sole  criterion  is  suc- 
cess, and  whose  list  of  the  cardinal  virtues  is  headed 
by  Prosperity,  I  felt  that  it  would  be  a  grievous  sin 
of  omission  for  me  not  to  stop  and  visit  that  thriving 
old  town.  It  did  not  require  much  time  to  walk 
through  its  nice,  quiet  streets,  and  look  at  the  pic- 
tures and  wood  carvings  in  its  venerable  churches. 
The  white-capped  and  bright-eyed  lace-makers  sat  in 
windows  and  doorways,  their  busy  fingers  forming 
fabrics,  the  sight  of  which  would  kindle  the  fire  of 
covetousness  in  any  female  heart.  Three  hours  in 
Mechlin  sufficed  to  make  me  about  as  well  acquainted 
with  it  as  if  I  had  daily  waked  up  its  echoes  with  the 
creaking  of  my  shoes,  until  their  thick  soles  were 
worn  out  past  all  hope  of  tapping.  Selecting  one  of 
the  numerous  railways  that  branch  out  from  Mech- 
lin, like  the  reins  from  the  hand  of  a  popular  circus 
rider  in  his  favourite  "six-horse-act,"  the  "Courier 
of  St.  Petersburg,"  I  took  a  ticket  for  Brussels,  and 
soon  found  myself  spinning  along  over  these  fertile 
plains,  whose  joyous  verdure  I  had  not  sufficient  time 
to  appreciate  before  I  found  myself  in  the  capital  of 
Belgium. 

And  what  a  charming  place  this  city  of  lace  and 
carpets  is !  Clean  as  a  parlour,  not  a  speck  nor  a  stain 
to  be  seen  any  where,  with  less  of  Dutch  stiffness 
and  more  of  French  ease,  so  that  you  do  not  feel  so 
much  like  an  intruder  as  in  most  other  strange  cities. 
Brussels  is  a  kind  of  vestibule  to  Paris;  its  streets,  its 
shops,  its  public  edifices  are  all  reflections  in  minia- 
ture of  those  of  the  French  metropolis.  It  has  long 
seemed  to  me  so  natural  a  preparation  for  the 
meridian  splendours  of  Paris,  that  to  go  thither  in 

[403 


ANTWERP  AND  BRUSSELS 

any  other  way  than  through  Brussels,  is  as  if  you 
should  enter  a  saloon  by  a  back  window,  rather  than 
through  the  legitimate  front  door.  In  one  respect  I 
prefer  Brussels  to  Paris;  it  is  smaller,  and  your  mind 
takes  it  all  in  at  once.  In  the  French  capital,  its  very 
vastness  bewilders  you.  You  are  in  the  condition  of 
the  gentleman  whose  wife  was  so  fat  that  when  he 
wished  to  embrace  her,  he  was  obliged  to  make  two 
actions  of  the  feat,  and  use  a  bit  of  chalk  to  insure 
the  proper  distribution  of  his  caress.  But  in  Brussels 
every  thing  is  so  harmoniously  and  compactly  com- 
bined, that  you  can  enjoy  it  all  at  once.  How  does 
one's  mind  treasure  up  his  rambles  through  these  fair 
streets  and  gay  arcades,  his  leisurely  walks  on  these 
spacious  boulevards,  or  under  the  dense  shade  of  this 
lovely  park,  his  musings  in  this  fine  old  church  of  Ste. 
Gudule,  whose  gorgeous  windows  symbolize  the 
heavenly  bow,  and  whose  air  of  devotion  is  eloquent 
of  the  undying  hope  which  abides  within  its  conse- 
crated precincts !  How  one  looks  back  years  after 
leaving  Brussels,  and  conjures  up,  in  his  memory,  its 
public  monuments,  from  that  exceedingly  diminutive 
and  peculiar  statue  near  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  which 
has  pursued  its  useful  and  ornamental  career  for  so 
many  centuries,  to  the  heroic  equestrian  figure  of 
Godfrey  of  Bouillon,  in  the  Place  Royale !  How 
vividly  does  one  remember  the  old  Gothic  hall, 
which  has  remained  unchanged  during  the  many 
years  that  have  passed  since  the  Emperor  Charles  V. 
there  laid  down  the  burden  of  his  power,  and  ex- 
changed the  throne  for  the  cloister. 

One  of  the  most  delightful  recollections  of  my 
term  of  residence  in  Brussels,  is  of  a  bright  summer 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

day,  when  I  made  an  excursion  to  the  field  of  Water- 
loo. Some  Englishmen  have  established  a  line  of 
coaches  for  the  purpose — real  old  fashioned  coaches, 
with  a  driver  and  a  guard,  which  latter  functionary 
performed  Yankee  Doodle  most  admirably  on  his 
melodious  horn  as  we  rattled  out  of  town.  The 
roadside  views  cannot  have  changed  much  since  the 
night  when  the  pavement  shook  beneath  the  heavy 
artillery  and  thundering  tramp  of  Wellington's 
army.  The  forest  of  Soignies  (or,  to  use  its  poetical 
name,  Arden)  looked  as  it  might  have  looked  before 
it  was  immortalized  by  a  Tacitus  and  a  Shakspeare; 
and  its  fresh  foliage  was  "dewy  with  Nature's  tear- 
drops," over  our  two  coach  loads  of  pleasure-seek- 
ers, just  as  Byron  describes  it  to  have  been  over  the 
"unreturning  brave,"  who  passed  beneath  it  forty 
years  ago.  Our  party  was  shown  over  the  memo- 
rable field  by  an  old  English  sergeant  who  was  in  the 
battle ;  a  fine  bluff  old  fellow,  and  a  gentleman  withal, 
who,  though  his  head  was  white,  had  all  the  enthu- 
siasm of  a  young  soldier.  It  was  the  most  interest- 
ing trip  of  the  kind  that  I  ever  made,  far  surpassing 
my  expectations,  for  the  ground  remains  literally  in 
statu  quo  ante  bellum.  No  commissioners  of  high- 
ways have  interfered  with  its  historical  boundaries. 
It  remains,  for  the  most  part,  under  cultivation,  as  it 
was  before  it  became  famous,  and  the  grain  grows, 
perhaps,  more  luxuriantly  for  the  chivalric  blood 
once  shed  there.  There  they  are,  unchanged,  those 
localities  which  seem  to  so  many  mere  inventions  of 
the  historian,  Mont  St.  Jean,  the  farm  of  La  Haye 
Sainte,  the  chateau  of  Hougoumont,  the  orchard 
with  its  low  brick  wall,  over  which  the  chosen  troops 


ANTWERP  AND  BRUSSELS 

of  France  and  England  fought  hand  to  hand,  and  the 
spot  where  the  last  great  charge  was  made,  and  the 
spell  which  held  Europe  in  awe  of  the  name  of  Na- 
poleon, and  made  that  name  his  country's  watch- 
word, and  the  synonyme  of  victory,  was  broken 
forever.  Perhaps  I  err  in  saying  forever,  for  France 
is  certainly  not  unmindful  of  that  name  even  now. 
That  showery  afternoon,  when  the  great  conqueror 
saw  his  veterans,  against  whom  scores  of  battle 
fields,  and  all  the  terrors  of  a  Russian  campaign, 
proved  powerless,  cut  to  pieces  and  dispersed  by  a 
superior  force,  to  which  the  news  of  coming  reen- 
forcements  gave  new  strength  and  courage, — that 
very  afternoon  a  boy,  without  a  thought  of  battles  or 
their  consequences,  was  playing  in  the  quiet  grounds 
of  the  chateau  of  Malmaison.  If  Napoleon  could 
have  looked  forward  forty  years,  if  he  could  have 
foreseen  the  romantic  career  of  that  child,  and 
followed  him  through  thirty  years  of  exile,  imprison- 
ment, and  discouragement,  until  he  saw  him  reestab- 
lish the  empire  which  was  then  overthrown,  and 
place  France  on  a  higher  pinnacle  of  power  than  she 
ever  knew  before',  how  comparatively  insignificant 
would  have  seemed  to  him  the  consequences  of  that 
last  desperate  charge !  If  he  could  have  seen  that  it 
was  reserved  to  his  nephew,  the  grandchild  of  his 
divorced  but  faithful  Josephine,  to  avenge  Waterloo 
by  an  alliance  more  fatal  to  England's  prestige  than 
any  invasion  could  be,  and  that  the  armies  which  had 
that  day  borne  such  bloody  witness  to  their  uncon- 
querable daring,  would  forty  years  later  be  united  to 
resist  the  encroachments  of  the  power  which  first 
checked  him  in  his  career  of  victory,  he  would  have 

n.433 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

had  something  to  think  of  during  that  gloomy  night 
besides  the  sad  events  that  had  wrought  such  a  fear- 
ful change  in  his  condition. 

I  returned  to  Brussels  in  the  afternoon,  meditating 
on  the  scenes  I  had  visited,  and  repeating  the  five 
stanzas  of  Childe  Harold  in  which  Byron  has  com- 
memorated the  battle  of  Waterloo.  In  the  evening 
I  read,  with  new  pleasure,  Thackeray's  graphic 
Waterloo  chapter  in  Vanity  Fair,  and  dreamed  all 
night  of  falling  empires  and  "garments  rolled  in 
blood."  And  now  I  turn  my  face  towards  Italy. 


£443 


GENOA  AND   FLORENCE 

IT  is  a  happy  day  in  every  one's  life  when  he 
mences  his  journey  into  Italy.  That  glorious 
land,  "rich  with  the  spoils  of  time"  above  all  others, 
endeared  to  every  heart  possessing  any  sense  of  the 
beautiful  in  poetry  and  art,  or  of  the  heroic  in  his* 
tory,  rises  up  before  him  as  it  was  wont  to  do  in  the 
days  of  his  youth,  when  Childe  Harold's  glowing 
numbers  gave  a  tone  of  enthusiasm  to  his  every 
thought,  and  filled  him  with  longings,  for  the  realiza- 
tion of  which  he  hardly  dared  to  hope.  For  the 
time,  the  commonest  actions  of  the  traveller  seem  to 
catch  something  of  the  indescribable  charm  of  the 
land  to  which  he  is  journeying.  The  ticketing  of 
luggage  and  the  securing  of  a  berth  on  board  a 
steamer — occupations  which  are  not  ordinarily  con- 
sidered particularly  agreeable — become  invested  with 
an  attractiveness  that  makes  him  wonder  how  he 
could  ever  have  found  them  irksome.  If  he  ap- 
proaches Italy  by  land  from  France  or  Switzerland, 
with  what  curiosity  does  he  study  the  varied  features 
of  the  Piedmontese  landscape!  He  recognizes  the 
fertile  fields  which  he  read  about  in  Tacitus  years 
ago,  and  endeavours  to  find  in  the  strange  dialect 
which  he  hears  spoken  in  the  brief  stops  of  the  dili- 
gence to  change  horses,  something  to  remind  him 
even  faintly  of  the  melodious  tongue  with  whose  ac- 

C45] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

cents  Grisi  and  Bosio  had  long  since  made  him  fa- 
miliar. Meanwhile  his  imagination  is  not  idle,  and  his 
mind  is  filled  with  historical  pictures  drawn  from  the 
classical  pages  which  he  once  found  any  thing  but 
entertaining.  Though  he  may  be  fresh  from  the 
cloudless  atmosphere  of  fair  Provence,  he  fancies 
that  the  sky  is  bluer  and  the  air  more  pure  than  he 
ever  saw  before. 

It  is  a  great  advantage  to  enter  Italy  from  the 
sea.  In  this  way  you  perceive  more  clearly  the  na- 
tional characteristics,  and  enter  at  once  into  the 
Italian  way  of  life.  You  avoid  in  this  way  that 
gradual  change  from  one  pure  nationality  to  another, 
which  is  eminently  unsatisfactory.  You  do  not  weary 
yourself  with  the  mixed  population  and  customs  of 
those  border  towns  which  bear  about  the  same  rela- 
tion to  Italy  that  Boulogne,  with  its  multitude  of 
English  residents,  bears  to  France.  It  was  my  good 
fortune  when  I  first  visited  Italy,  years  ago,  to  make 
the  voyage  from  America  direct  to  the  proud  city  of 
Genoa.  Fifty-five  weary  days  passed  away  before 
the  end  of  the  voyage  was  reached.  Twenty-six  of 
those  days  were  spent  in  battling  with  a  terrible 
north-easter,  before  whose  might  many  a  better  craft 
than  the  one  I  was  in  went  down  into  the  insatiable 
depths.  My  Italian  anticipations  kept  me  up  through 
all  the  cheerlessness  of  that  time.  The  stormy  sky, 
the  wet,  the  cold,  and  all  the  discomfort  could  not 
keep  from  my  mind's  eye  the  vineyards,  palaces, 
churches,  and  majestic  ruins  which  made  up  the  Italy 
I  had  looked  forward  to  from  childhood.  My  first 
sight  of  that  romantic  land  did  somewhat  shock,  I 
must  acknowledge,  my  preconceived  notions.  I  was 


GENOA  AND  FLORENCE 

called  on  deck  early  one  December  morning  to  se'e 
the  land  which  is  associated  in  most  minds  with  per- 
petual sunshine.  Facing  a  biting,  northerly  blast,  I 
saw  the  maritime  range  of  the  Alps  covered  with 
snow  and  looking  as  relentless  as  arctic  icebergs.  My 
disappointment  was  forgotten,  however,  two  morn- 
ings after,  when  Genoa,  wearing  "the  beauty  of  the 
morning,"  lay  before  our  weather-beaten  bark.  It 
was  something  to  remember  to  my  dying  day— that 
approach  to  the  city  of  palaces.  Surrounded  by  its 
amphitheatre  of  hills  crested  on  every  side  with 
heavy  fortifications,  its  palaces,  and  towers,  and 
domes,  and  terraced  gardens  rising  apparently  from 
the  very  edge  of  that  tideless  sea,  there  sat  Genoa, 
surpassing  in  its  splendour  the  wildest  imaginings  of 
my  youth.  I  shall  never  forget  the  thrill  that  ran 
through  every  fibre  of  my  frame,  when  the  sun  rose 
above  those  embattled  ridges,  and  poured  his  flood 
of  saffron  glory  over  the  whole  wonderful  scene, 
and  the  bells  from  a  hundred  churches  and  convents 
rang  out  as  cheerily  as  if  the  sunbeams  made  them 
musical,  like  the  statue  in  the  ancient  fable,  and  there 
was  no  further  need  of  bell  ropes.  The  astonish- 
ment of  Aladdin  when  he  rubbed  the  lamp  and  saw 
the  effects  of  that  operation  could  not  have  equalled 
mine,  when  I  saw  Genoa  put  on  the  light  and  life  of 
day  like  a  garment.  It  was  like  a  scene  in  a  the- 
atrical pageant,  or  one  of  the  brilliant  changes  in  a 
great  firework,  so  instantaneous  was  the  transition 
from  the  subdued  light  and  calmness  of  early  morn- 
ing to  the  activity  and  golden  light  of  day.  All  the 
discomfort  of  the  eight  preceding  weeks  was  for- 
gotten in  the  exultation  of  that  moment.  I  had 

C473 


found  the  Italy  of  my  young  dreams,  and  my  happi- 
ness was  complete. 

This  time,  however,  I  entered  Italy  from  the 
north.  I  pass  by  clean,  prosperous-looking  Milan, 
with  its  elegant  churches,  and  its  white-coated  Aus- 
trian soldiers  standing  guard  in  every  public  place. 
I  have  not  a  word  of  lament  to  utter  at  seeing  a 
stranger  force  sustaining  social  order  there.  It  is 
better  that  it  should  be  sustained  by  a  despotism  far 
more  cruel  than  that  of  Austria,  than  to  become  the 
prey  of  that  sanguinary  anarchy  which  is  dignified  in 
Europe  with  the  name  of  republicanism.  The  most 
absolute  of  all  absolute  monarchies  is  to  be  preferred 
to  the  best  government  that  could  possibly  be  built 
upon  such  a  foundation  as  Mazzini's  stiletto.  Far 
better  is  the  severest  military  despotism  than  the  irre- 
sponsible tyranny  of  those  who  deny  the  first  prin- 
ciples of  government  and  common  morality,  and  who 
seem  to  consider  assassination  the  chief  of  virtues 
and  the  most  heroic  of  actions.  I  pass  by  that  mag- 
nificent cathedral,  with  its  thousands  of  pinnacles  and 
shining  statues  piercing  the  clear  atmosphere  like  the 
peaks  of  a  stupendous  iceberg,  and  its  subterranean 
chapel,  glittering  with  precious  metals  and  jewels, 
where,  in  a  crystal  shrine,  repose  the  relics  of  the 
great  St.  Charles,  and  the  lamps  of  gold  and  silver 
burn  unceasingly,  and  symbolize  the  shining  virtues  of 
the  self -forgetful  successor  of  St.  Ambrose,  and  the 
glowing  gratitude  of  the  faithful  Milanese  for  his 
devotion  to  the  welfare  of  their  forefathers. 

I  lingered  among  the  attractions  of  Genoa  for  a 
few  days.  I  enjoy  not  only  those  magnificent  palaces 
with  their  spacious  quadrangles,  broad  staircases, 

C483 


GENOA  AND  FLORENCE 

and  sculptured  facades,  but  those  narrow,  winding 
streets  of  which  three  quarters  of  the  city  are  com- 
posed— so  narrow  indeed  that  a  carriage  never  is 
seen  in  them,  and  a  donkey,  pannier-laden,  after  the 
manner  of  Ali  Baba's  faithful  animal,  compels  you  to 
keep  very  close  to  the  buildings.  Genoa  is  the  very 
reverse  of  Philadelphia.  Its  streets  are  as  narrow 
and  crooked  as  those  of  Philadelphia  are  broad  and 
straight.  The  Quaker  City  was  always  a  wearisome 
place  to  me.  Its  rectangular  avenues — so  wide  that 
they  afford  no  protection  from  the  wintry  blast  nor 
shelter  from  the  canicular  sunshine,  and  as  intermin- 
able as  a  tale  in  a  weekly  newspaper — tire  me  out. 
They  make  me  long  for  something  more  social  and 
natural  than  their  straight  lines.  Man  is  a  gre- 
garious animal.  It  is  his  nature  to  snuggify  himself. 
But  the  Quaker  affects  a  contempt  for  snugness,  and 
includes  Hogarth's  line  of  beauty  among  the  worldly 
vanities  which  his  religion  obliges  him  to  shun. 
Every  time  I  think  of  Philadelphia  my  disrespect  for 
the  science  of  geometry  is  increased,  and  I  find  my- 
self more  and  more  inclined  to  believe  the  most  un- 
kind things  that  Lord  Macaulay  can  say  about  Mr. 
Penn,  its  founder.  Cherishing  such  sentiments  as 
these,  is  it  wonderful  that  I  find  Genoa  a  pleasant 
city?  I  enjoy  its  gay  port,  its  thronged  market  place, 
its  sumptuous  churches,  with  gilded  vaults  and  pan- 
els, and  checkered  exteriors,  its  well-dressed  people, 
from  the  bluff  coachman,  who  laughed  at  my  at- 
tempts to  understand  the  Genoese  dialect,  to  the 
devout  feminines  in  their  graceful  white  veils,  which 
give  the  whole  city  a  peculiarly  festive  and  nuptial 
appearance:  but  it  must  be  acknowledged,  that  the 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

up-and-down-stairsy  feature  of  the  town  is  not  grate- 
ful to  my  gouty  feet. 

I  must  not  weary  you,  dear  reader,  with  any 
attempts  to  describe  the  delightful  four  days'  jour- 
ney from  Genoa  to  Florence,  in  a  vettura.  The 
Cornice  road,  with  its  steep  cliffs  or  trim  villas  on  one 
side,  and  the  clear  blue  Mediterranean  on  the  other, 
—those  pleasant  old  towns,  pervaded  with  an  air  of 
respectable  antiquity,  Chiavari,  Sestri,  Sarzana, 
Spezzia,  with  its  beautiful  gulf,  whose  waters  looked 
so  pure  and  calm  that  it  was  difficult  to  think  that 
they  could  ever  have  swallowed  poor  Percy  Shelley, 
and  robbed  English  literature  of  one  of  its  brightest 
ornaments, — Pietra  Santa,  Carrara,  with  its  queer 
old  church,  its  quarries,  its  door-steps  and  window- 
sills  of  milk-white  marble,  and  its  throng  of  artists, 
—the  little  marble  city  of  Massa  Ducale,  nestling 
among  the  mountains,— the  vast  groves  of  olives, 
whose  ash-coloured  leaves  made  noontide  seem  like 
twilight,  —  all  these  things  would  require  a  great  ex- 
penditure of  time  and  rhetoric,  and  therefore  I  will 
not  even  allude  to  them. 

Neither  will  I  tire  you  with  any  reference  to  my 
brief  sojourn  in  Pisa.  I  will  not  tell  how  delightful 
it  was  to  perambulate  the  clean  streets  of  that  peace- 
ful city, — how  I  enjoyed  the  view  from  the  bridges, 
the  ancient  towers  and  domes,  and  the  lofty  palaces, 
whose  fair  fronts  are  mirrored  in  the  soft-flowing 
Arno.  I  will  not  attempt  to  describe  the  enchant- 
ment produced  by  that  noble  architectural  group,— 
the  Cathedral,  the  Baptistery,  the  Campanile,  and 
the  Campo  Santo,— nor  the  joy  I  felt  on  making  a 
closer  acquaintance  with  that  graceful  tower,  whose 


GENOA  AND  FLORENCE 

inexplicable  dereliction  from  the  perfect  uprightness 
which  is  inculcated  as  a  primary  duty  in  all  similar 
structures,  was  made  familiar  to  me  at  an  early  age, 
through  the  medium  of  a  remarkable  wood-cut  in  my 
school  Geography.  I  will  not  tell  how  I  fatigued  my 
sense  with  the  forms  of  beauty  with  which  that  glo- 
rious church  is  filled,— how  refreshing  its  holy  quiet 
and  subdued  light  were  to  my  travel-worn  spirit,— 
nor  how  the  majestic  cloisters  of  the  Campo  Santo, 
with  their  delicate  traceries,  antique  frescoes,  and 
constantly  varying  light  and  shade,  elevated  and 
purified  my  heart  of  the  sordid  spirit  of  this  mean, 
practical  age,  until  I  felt  that  to  live  amid  such  scenes, 
and  to  be  buried  at  last  in  the  earth  of  Palestine, 
under  the  shade  of  those  solemn  arches,  was  the  only 
worthy  object  of  human  ambition. 

I  entered  Florence  late  in  the  afternoon,  under 
cover  of  a  fog  that  would  have  done  credit  to  Lon- 
don in  the  depths  of  its  November  nebulosity.  It 
was  rather  an  unbecoming  dress  for  the  style  of 
beauty  of  the  Tuscan  capital, — that  mantle  of  chill 
vapour, — but  it  was  worn  but  a  few  hours,  and  the  sun 
rose  the  next  morning  in  all  his  legitimate  splendour, 
and  darted  his  rays  through  as  clear  and  frosty  an 
atmosphere  as  ever  fell  to  the  lot  of  even  that 
favoured  country.  I  have  once  or  twice  heard  the 
epithet  "beautiful"  applied  to  this  city;  indeed,  I  will 
not  be  sure  that  I  have  not  met  with  it  in  some  book 
or  other.  It  is,  in  fact,  the  only  word  that  can  be 
used  with  any  propriety  concerning  this  charming 
place.  It  is  not  vast  like  Rome,  nor  is  the  soul  of  its 
beholder  saddened  by  the  sight  of  mighty  ruins,  or 
burdened  with  the  weight  of  thousands  of  years  of 

C5I3 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

heroic  history.  It  does  not  possess  the  broad  Bay  of 
Naples,  nor  is  it  watched  over  by  a  stupendous  vol- 
cano, smoking  leisurely  for  want  of  some  better  occu- 
pation. But  it  lies  in  the  valley  of  the  Arno,  one  of 
the  most  harmonious  and  impressive  works  of  art 
that  the  world  has  ever  seen,  surrounded  by  natural 
beauties  that  realize  the  most  ecstatic  dreams  of 
poesy. 

Firenze  la  bella!  Who  can  look  at  her  from  any 
of  the  terraced  hills  that  enclose  her  from  the  rude 
world,  and  deny  her  that  title?  That  fertile  plain 
which  stretches  from  her  very  walls  to  the  edge  of 
the  horizon— those  picturesque  hills,  dotted  with 
lovely  villas — those  orchards  and  vineyards,  in  their 
glory  of  gold  and  purple — that  river,  stealing  noise- 
lessly to  the  sea — and  far  away  the  hoary  peaks  of 
the  Apennines,  changing  their  hue  with  every  hour  of 
sun-light,  and  displaying  their  most  gorgeous  robes, 
in  honour  of  the  departing  day, — I  pity  the  man  who 
can  look  upon  them  without  a  momentary  feeling  of 
inspiration.  The  view  from  Fiesole  is  consolation 
enough  for  a  life  of  disappointment,  and  ought  to 
make  all  future  earthly  trials  seem  as  nothing  to  him 
who  is  permitted  to  enjoy  it. 

And  then,  those  domes  and  towers,  so  eloquent  of 
the  genius  of  Giotto  and  Brunelleschi  and  of  the  pub- 
lic spirit  and  earnest  devotion  of  ages  which  modern 
ignorance  stigmatizes  as  "dark," — who  can  behold 
them  without  a  thrill?  The  battlemented  tower  of 
the  Palazzo  Vecchio — which  seems  as  if  it  had  been 
hewn  out  of  solid  rock,  rather  than  built  up  by  the 
patient  labour  of  the  mason— looks  down  upon  the 
peaceful  city  with  a  composure  that  seems  almost  in- 

C523 


GENOA  AND  FLORENCE 

telligent,  and  makes  you  wonder  whether  it  appeared 
the  same  when  the  signiory  of  Florence  held  their 
councils  under  its  massive  walls,  and  in  those  dark 
days  when  the  tyrannous  factions  of  Guelph  and 
Ghibelline  celebrated  their  bloody  carnival.  The 
graceful  Campanile  of  the  cathedral,  with  its  col- 
oured marbles,  seems  too  much  like  a  mantel  orna- 
ment to  be  exposed  to  the  changes  of  the  weather. 
Amid  the  other  domes  and  towers  of  the  city  rises 
the  vast  dome  of  the  cathedral,  the  forerunner  of 
that  of  St.  Peter's,  and  almost  its  equal.  It  appears 
to  be  conscious  of  its  superiority  to  the  neighbouring 
architectural  monuments,  and  merits  Hallam's  de- 
scription—  "an  emblem  of  the  Catholic  hierarchy 
under  its  supreme  head;  like  Rome  itself,  imposing, 
unbroken,  unchangeable,  radiating  in  equal  expan- 
sion to  every  part  of  the  earth,  and  directing  its 
convergent  curves  to  heaven." 

There  is  no  city  in  the  world  so  full  of  memories 
of  the  middle  ages  as  Florence.  Its  very  palaces, 
with  their  heavily  barred  basement  windows,  look  as 
if  they  were  built  to  stand  a  siege.  Their  sombre 
walls  are  in  strong  contrast  with  the  bloom  and  sun- 
shine which  we  naturally  associate  with  the  valley  of 
the  Arno.  Their  magnificent  proportions  and  the 
massiveness  of  their  construction  oppress  you  with 
recollections  of  the  warlike  days  in  which  they  were 
erected.  You  wonder,  as  you  stand  in  their  court- 
yards, or  perambulate  the  streets  darkened  by  their 
overhanging  cornices,  what  has  become  of  all  the 
cavaliers;  and  if  a  gentleman  in  "complete  steel" 
should  lift  his  visor  to  accost  you,  it  would  not  startle 
you  so  much  as  to  hear  two  English  tourists  with  the 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

inevitable  red  guide-books  under  their  arms,  con- 
versing about  the  "Grand  Juke."  Wherever  one 
may  turn  his  steps  in  Florence,  he  meets  with  some 
object  of  beauty  or  historical  interest;  yet  among  all 
these  charms  and  wonders  there  is  one  building  upon 
which  my  eyes  and  mind  are  never  tired  of  feeding. 
The  Palazzo  Riccardi,  the  cradle  of  the  great  Me- 
dici family,  is  not  less  impressive  in  its  architecture 
than  in  its  historic  associations.  Its  black  walls  have 
a  greater  charm  for  me  than  the  variegated  marbles 
of  the  Duomo.  It  was  built  by  the  great  Cosmo  de' 
Medici,  and  was  the  home  of  that  family  of  merchant 
princes  in  the  most  glorious  period  of  its  history, 
when  a  grateful  people  delighted  to  render  to  its 
members  that  homage  which  is  equally  honourable  to 
"him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes."  The  genius  of 
Michel  Angelo  and  Donatello  is  impressed  upon  it. 
It  was  within  those  lofty  halls  that  Cosmo  and  his 
grandson,  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  welcomed  pon- 
tiffs and  princes,  and  the  illustrious  but  untitled 
nobility  of  literature  and  art,  which  was  the  boast  of 
their  age.  The  ancient  glories  of  the  majestic  pile 
are  kept  in  mind  by  an  inscription  which  greets  him 
who  enters  it  with  an  exhortation  to  "reverence  with 
gratitude  the  ancient  mansion  of  the  Medici,  in 
which  not  merely  so  many  illustrious  men,  but  Wis- 
dom herself  abode— a  house  which  was  the  nurse  of 
revived  learning." 

I  wonder  whether  any  one  ever  was  tired  of  stroll- 
ing about  these  old  streets  and  squares.  At  my  time 
of  life,  walking  is  not  particularly  agreeable,  even  if 
it  be  not  interfered  with  by  either  of  those  foes  to 
active  exercise  and  grace  of  movement — rheumatism 


GENOA  AND  FLORENCE 

or  gout;  but  I  must  acknowledge  that  I  have  found 
such  pleasure  in  rambling  through  the  familiar 
streets  of  this  delightful  city,  that  I  have  taken  no 
note  of  bodily  fatigue,  and  have  forgotten  the  crutch 
or  cane  which  is  my  inseparable  companion.  It  is  all 
the  same  to  me  whether  I  walk  about  the  streets,  or 
loiter  in  the  Boboli  Gardens,  or  listen  to  the  delicious 
music  of  the  full  military  band  that  plays  daily  for 
an  hour  before  sunset  under  the  shade  of  the  Cascine. 
They  all  afford  me  a  kind  of  vague  pleasure — very 
much  that  sort  of  satisfaction  which  springs  from 
hearing  a  cat  purr,  or  from  watching  the  fitful  blaze 
of  a  wood  fire.  I  have  no  fondness  for  jewelry,  and 
the  great  Kohinoor  diamond  and  all  the  crown 
jewels  of  Russia  could  not  invest  respectable  useless- 
ness  or  aristocratic  vice  with  any  beauty  for  me,  nor 
add  any  charm  to  a  bright,  intelligent  face,  such  as 
lights  up  many  a  home  in  this  selfish  world;  yet  I 
have  spent  hours  in  looking  at  the  stalls  on  the 
Jeweller's  Bridge,  and  enjoying  the  covetous  looks 
bestowed  by  so  many  passers-by  upon  their  glittering 
contents. 

There  are  some  excellent  bookstalls  here,  and  I 
have  renewed  the  joys  of  past  years  and  the  memory 
of  Paternoster  Row,  Fleet  Street,  Holborn,  the 
Strand,  and  of  the  quays  of  Paris,  in  the  inspection 
of  their  stock.  I  have  a  strong  affection  for  book- 
stalls, and  had  much  rather  buy  a  book  at  one  than  in 
a  shop.  In  the  first  place  it  would  be  cheaper;  in  the 
second  place  it  would  be  a  little  worn,  and  I  should 
become  the  possessor,  not  only  of  the  volume,  but  of 
its  associations  with  other  lovers  of  books  who 
turned  over  its  leaves,  reading  here  and  there,  envy- 

H55] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

ing  the  future  purchaser.  For  books,  so  long  as  they 
are  well  used,  increase  in  value  as  they  grow  in  age. 
Sir  William  Jones's  assertion,  that  "the  best  monu- 
ment that  can  be  erected  to  a  man  of  literary  talents 
is  a  good  edition  of  his  works,"  is  not  to  be  denied; 
but  who  would  think  of  reading,  for  the  enjoyment 
of  the  thing,  a  modern  edition  of  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  or  Izaak  Walton?  Who  would  wish  to 
read  Hamlet  in  a  volume  redolent  of  printers'  ink 
and  binders'  glue?  Who  would  read  a  clean  new 
copy  of  Robinson  Crusoe  when  he  might  have  one 
that  had  seen  service  in  a  circulating  library,  or  had 
been  well  thumbed  by  several  generations  of  adven- 
ture-loving boys?  A  book  is  to  me  like  a  hat  or  coat 
— a  very  uncomfortable  thing  until  the  newness  has 
been  worn  off. 

It  is  in  the  churches  of  Florence  that  my  enthu- 
siasm reaches  its  meridian.  This  solemn  cathedral, 
with  its  richly  dight  windows, — whose  warm  hues 
must  have  been  stolen  from  the  palette  of  Titian  or 
Tintoretto, — makes  me  forget  all  earthly  hopes  and 
sorrows;  and  the  majestic  Santa  Maria  Novella  and 
San  Lorenzo,  with  their  peaceful  cloisters  and  treas- 
ures of  literature  and  art,  appeal  strongly  to  my 
religious  sensibilities,  while  they  completely  satisfy 
my  taste.  And  then  Santa  Croce,  solemn,  not  merely 
as  a  place  of  worship,  but  as  the  repository  of  the 
dust  of  many  of  those  illustrious  men  whose  genius 
illumined  the  world  during  the  fourteenth  and  fif- 
teenth centuries!  I  have  enjoyed  Santa  Croce  par- 
ticularly, because  I  have  seen  more  of  the  religious 
life  of  the  Florentine  people  there.  For  more  thar» 
a  week  I  have  been  there  every  evening,  just  aftei 

C563 


GENOA  AND  FLORENCE 

sunset,  when  the  only  light  that  illuminated  those 
ancient  arches  came  from  the  high  altar,  which  ap- 
peared like  a  vision  of  heaven  in  the  midst  of  the 
thickest  darkness  of  earth.  The  nave  and  aisles  of 
that  vast  edifice  were  thronged:  men,  women,  and 
children  were  kneeling  upon  that  pavement  which 
contains  the  records  of  so  much  goodness  and  great- 
ness. I  have  heard  great  choirs ;  I  have  been  thrilled 
by  the  wondrous  power  of  voices  that  seemed  too 
much  like  those  of  angels  for  poor  humanity  to  listen 
to;  but  I  have  never  before  been  so  overwhelmed  as 
by  the  hearty  music  of  that  vast  multitude. 

The  galleries  of  art  need  another  volume  and  an 
abler  pen  than  mine.  Free  to  the  people  as  the  sun- 
light and  the  shade  of  the  public  gardens,  they  make 
an  American  blush  to  think  of  the  niggardly  spirit 
that  prevails  in  the  country  which  he  would  fain  per- 
suade himself  is  the  most  favoured  of  all  earthly 
abodes.  The  Academy,  the  Pitti,  the  Uffizi,  make 
you  think  that  life  is  too  short,  and  that  art  is  indeed 
long.  You  wish  that  you  had  more  months  to  devote 
to  them  than  you  have  days.  Great  as  is  the  pleasure 
that  I  have  found  in  them,  I  have  found  myself 
lingering  more  fondly  in  the  cloisters  and  corridors 
of  San  Marco  than  amid  the  wonderful  works  that 
deck  the  walls  of  the  palaces.  The  pencil  of  Beato 
Angelico  has  consecrated  that  dead  plastering,  and 
given  to  it  a  divine  life.  The  rapt  devotion  and  holy 
tranquillity  of  those  faces  reflect  the  glory  of  the 
eternal  world.  I  ask  no  more  convincing  proof  of 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  than  the  fact  that  those 
forms  of  beauty  and  holiness  were  conceived  and 
executed  by  a  mortal. 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

It  is  enough  to  excite  the  indignation  of  any  re- 
flective Englishman  or  American  to  visit  Florence, 
and  compare — Or  perhaps  I  ought  rather  to  say  con- 
trast— the  facts  which  force  themselves  upon  his  at- 
tention, with  the  prejudices  implanted  in  his  mind  by 
early  education.  Surely,  he  has  a  right  to  be  aston- 
ished, and  may  be  excused  if  he  indulges  in  a  little 
honest  anger,  when  he  looks  for  the  first  time  at  the 
masterpieces  of  art  which  had  their  origin  in  those 
ages  which  he  has  been  taught  to  consider  a  period  of 
ignorance  and  barbarism.  He  certainly  obtains  a  new 
idea  of  the  "barbarism"  of  the  middle  ages,  when  he 
visits  the  benevolent  institutions  which  they  have 
bequeathed  to  our  times,  and  when  he  sees  the  ad- 
mirable working  of  the  Compagnia  della  Misericor- 
dia,  which  unites  all  classes  of  society,  from  the 
grand  duke  to  his  humblest  subject,  in  the  bonds  of 
religion  and  philanthropy.  He  may  be  pardoned, 
too,  if  he  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  the  liberal  arts 
were  not  entirely  neglected  in  the  age  that  produced 
a  Dante  and  a  Petrarch,  a  Cimabue  and  a  Giotto, — 
not  to  mention  a  host  of  other  names,  which  may  not 
shine  so  brightly  as  these,  but  are  alike  superior  to 
temporal  accidents, — and  he  cannot  be  considered 
unreasonable  if  he  refuses  to  believe  that  the  ages 
which  witnessed  the  establishment  of  universities  like 
those  of  Paris,  Oxford,  Cambridge,  Prague,  Bo- 
logna, Salamanca,  Vienna,  Ferrara,  Ingolstadt, 
Louvain,  Leipsic,  &c.,  were  quite  so  deeply  sunk  in 
darkness,  or  were  held  in  an  intellectual  bondage  so 
utterly  hopeless,  as  the  eulogists  of  the  nineteenth 
century  would  persuade  him.  The  monuments  of 
learning,  art,  and  benevolence,  with  which  Florence 

15*1 


GENOA  AND  FLORENCE 

is  filled,  will  convince  any  thinking  man  that  those 
who  speak  of  the  times  I  have  alluded  to  as  the  "dark 
ages,"  mean  thereby  the  ages  concerning  which  they 
are  in  the  dark;  and  admirably  exemplify  in  their 
own  shallow  self-sufficiency  the  ignorance  they  would 
impute  to  the  ages  when  learning  and  all  good  arts 
were  the  handmaids  of  religion. 


ANCIENT   ROME 

THE  moment  in  which  one  takes  his  first  look  at 
Rome  is  an  epoch  in  his  life.  Even  if  his  edu- 
cation should  have  been  a  most  illiberal  one,  and  he 
himself  should  be  as  strenuous  an  opponent  of  pon- 
tifical prerogatives  as  John  of  Leyden  or  Dr.  Dowl- 
ing,  he  is  sure  to  be,  for  the  time,  imbued  in  some 
measure  with  the  feelings  of  a  pilgrim.  The  sight  of 
that  city  which  has  exercised  such  a  mighty  influence 
on  the  world,  almost  from  its  very  foundation,  fills 
his  mind  with  "troublings  of  strange  joy."  His 
vague  notions  of  ancient  history  assume  a  more  dis- 
tinct form.  The  twelve  Caesars  pass  before  his 
mind's  eye  like  the  spectral  kings  before  the  Scotch 
usurper.  The  classics  which  he  used  to  neglect  so 
shamefully  at  school,  the  historical  lessons  which  he 
thought  so  dull,  have  been  endowed  with  life  and  in- 
terest by  that  one  glance  of  his  astonished  eye.  But 
if  he  loved  the  classics  in  his  youth, — if  the  wander- 
ings of  vEneas  and  the  woes  of  Dido  charmed  instead 
of  tiring  him,— if  "Livy's  pictured  page,"  the  pol- 
ished periods  of  Sallust  and  Tacitus,  and  the  mighty 
eloquence  of  Cicero,  were  to  him  a  mine  of  delight 
rather  than  a  task,— how  does  his  eye  glisten  with 
renewed  youth,  and  his  heart  swell  as  his  old  boyish 
enthusiasm  is  once  more  kindled  within  it !  He  feels 
that  he  has  reached  the  goal  to  which  his  heart  and 
mind  were  turned  during  his  purest  and  most  un~ 


ANCIENT  ROME 

selfish  years;  and  if  he  were  as  unswayed  by  human 
respect  as  he  was  then,  he  would  kneel  down  with  the 
travel-worn  pilgrims  by  the  wayside  to  give  utterance 
to  his  gratitude,  and  to  greet  the  queen  city  of  the 
world:  Salve,  magna  parensf 

I  shall  not  easily  forget  the  cloudless  afternoon 
when  I  first  took  that  long,  wearisome  ride  from 
Civita  Vecchia  to  Rome.  There  was  no  railway  in 
those  days,  as  there  is  now,  and  the  diligence  was  of 
so  rude  and  uncomfortable  a  make  that  I  half  sus- 
pected it  to  be  the  one  upon  the  top  of  which  Han- 
nibal is  said  to  have  crossed  the  Alps,  (summd 
diUgent'id.)  I  shared  the  coupe  with  two  other  suf- 
ferers, and  was,  like  them,  so  fatigued  that  it  seemed 
as  if  a  celestial  vision  would  be  powerless  to  make 
me  forgetful  of  my  aching  joints,  when  (after  a 
laborious  pull  up  a  hill  which  might  be  included 
among  the  "everlasting  hills"  spoken  of  in  holy  writ) 
our  long-booted  postilion  turned  his  expressive  face 
towards  us,  and  banished  all  our  weariness  by  ex- 
claiming, as  he  pointed  into  the  blue  distance  with  his 
short  whip-handle,  "Ecco!  Roma!  SanPietro!" 

A  single  glance  of  the  eye  served  to  overcome  all 
our  fatigue.  There  lay  the  world's  capital,  crowned 
by  the  mighty  dome  of  the  Vatican  basilica,  and  we 
were  every  moment  drawing  nearer  to  it.  It  was 
evening  before  we  found  ourselves  staring  at  those 
dark  walls  which  have  withstood  so  many  sieges, 
and  heard  the  welcome  demand  for  passports,  which 
informed  us  that  we  had  reached  the  gate  of  the  city. 

I  was  really  in  Rome, — I  was  in  that  city  hallowed 
by  so  many  classical,  historical,  and  sacred  associa- 
tions,—  and  it  all  seemed  to  me  like  a  confused 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

dream.  Twice,  before  the  diligence  had  gone  a  hun- 
dred yards  inside  the  gate,  I  had  pinched  myself  to 
ascertain  whether  I  was  really  awake ;  and  even  after 
I  passed  through  the  lofty  colonnade  of  St.  Peter's, 
and  had  gazed  at  the  front  of  the  church  and  the 
vast  square  which  art  has  made  familiar  to  every 
one,  and  had  seen  the  fountains  with  the  moonbeams 
flashing  in  their  silvery  spray,  I  feared  lest  something 
should  interrupt  my  dream,  and  I  should  wake  to 
find  myself  in  my  snug  bedroom  at  home,  wondering 
at  the  weakness  which  allowed  me  to  be  seduced  into 
the  eating  of  a  bit  of  cheese  the  evening  before.  It 
was  not  so,  however;  no  disorganizing  cheese  had 
interfered  with  my  digestion;  it  was  no  dream;  and 
I  was  really  in  Rome.  I  slept  soundly  when  I  reached 
my  hotel,  for  I  felt  sure  that  no  hostile  Brennus  lay 
in  wait  to  disturb  the  city's  peace,  and  the  grateful 
hardness  of  my  bed  convinced  me  that  all  the  geese 
of  the  capital  had  not  been  killed,  if  the  enemy 
should  effect  an  entrance. 

There  are  few  people  who  love  Rome  at  first  sight. 
The  ruins,  that  bear  witness  to  her  grandeur  in  the 
days  of  her  worldly  supremacy,  oppress  you  at  first 
with  an  inexpressible  sadness.  The  absence  of  any 
thing  like  the  business  enterprise  and  energy  of  this 
commercial  age  makes  English  and  American  people 
long  at  first  for  a  little  of  the  bustle  and  roar  of 
Broadway  and  the  Strand.  The  small  paving  stones, 
which  make  the  feet  of  those  who  are  unaccustomed 
to  them  ache  severely,  the  brick  and  stone  floors  of 
the  houses,  and  the  lack  of  the  little  comforts  of 
modern  civilization,  render  Rome  a  wearisome  place, 
until  one  has  caught  its  spirit.  Little  does  he  think 


ANCIENT  ROME 

who  for  the  first  time  gazes  on  those  gray,  moulder- 
ing walls,  on  which  "dull  time  feeds  like  slow  fire 
upon  a  hoary  brand,"  or  walks  those  streets  in  which 
the  past  and  present  are  so  strangely  commingled,— 
little  does  he  realize  how  dear  those  scenes  will  one 
day  be  to  him.  He  cannot  foresee  the  regret  with 
which  he  will  leave  those  things  that  seem  too  com- 
mon and  familiar  to  deserve  attention,  nor  the  glow- 
ing enthusiasm  which  their  mention  will  inspire  in 
after  years;  and  he  would  smile  incredulously  if  any 
one  were  to  predict  to  him  that  his  heart,  in  after 
times,  will  swell  with  homesick  longings  as  he  recalls 
the  memory  of  that  ancient  city,  and  that  he  will  one 
day  salute  it  from  afar  as  his  second  home. 

I  make  no  claims  to  antiquarian  knowledge ;  for  I 
do  not  love  antiquity  for  itself  alone.  It  is  only  by 
force  of  association  that  antiquity  has  any  charms  for 
me.  The  pyramids  of  Egypt  would  awaken  my  re- 
spect, not  so  much  by  their  age  or  size,  as  by  the 
remembrance  of  the  momentous  scenes  which  have 
been  enacted  in  their  useless  and  ungraceful  presence. 
Show  me  a  scroll  so  ancient  that  human  science  can 
obtain  no  key  to  the  mysteries  locked  up  in  the 
strange  figures  inscribed  upon  it,  and  you  would 
move  me  but  little.  But  place  before  me  one  of  those 
manuscripts  (filled  with  scholastic  lore,  instinct  with 
classic  eloquence,  or  luminous  with  the  word  of  eter- 
nal life)  which  have  come  down  to  us  from  those 
nurseries  of  learning  and  piety,  the  monasteries  of 
the  middle  ages,  and  you  fill  me  with  the  intensest 
enthusiasm.  There  is  food  for  the  imagination  hid- 
den under  those  worm-eaten  covers  and  brazen 
clasps.  I  see  in  those  fair  pages  something  more 

C633 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

than  the  results  of  the  patient  toil  which  perpetuated 
those  precious  truths.  From  those  carefully  penned 
lines,  and  brilliant  initial  letters,  the  pale,  thoughtful 
face  of  the  transcriber  looks  upon  me— his  contempt 
of  worldly  ambition  and  sacrifice  of  human  consola- 
tions are  reflected  there — and  from  the  quiet  of  his 
austere  cell,  he  seems  to  dart  from  his  serene  eyes  a 
glance  of  patient  reproach- at  the  worldlier  and  more 
modern  age  which  reaps  the  fruit  of  his  labour,  and 
repays  him  by  slandering  his  character.  Show  me  a 
building  whose  stupendous  masonry  seems  the  work 
of  Titan  hands,  but  whose  history  is  lost  in  the  twi- 
light of  the  ages,  so  that  no  record  remains  of  a  time 
when  it  was  any  thing  but  an  antique  enigma,  and  its 
massive  columns  and  Cyclopean  proportions  will  not 
touch  me  so  nearly  as  the  stone  in  Florence  where 
Dante  used  to  stand  and  gaze  upon  that  dome  which 
Michel  Angelo  said  he  would  not  imitate,  and  could 
not  excel. 

Feeling  thus  about  antiquities,  I  need  not  say  that 
those  of  Rome,  so  crowned  with  the  most  thrilling 
historical  and  personal  associations,  are  not  wanting 
in  charms  for  me.  Yet  I  do  not  claim  to  be  an  anti- 
quarian. It  is  all  one  to  me  whether  the  column  of 
Phocas  be  forty  feet  high  or  sixty, — whether  a  ruin 
on  the  Palatine  that  fascinates  me  by  its  richness  and 
grandeur,  was  once  a  Temple  of  Minerva  or  of 
Jupiter  Stator;  or  whether  its  foundations  are  of 
travertine  or  tufa.  I  abhor  details.  My  enjoyment 
of  a  landscape  would  be  at  an  end  if  I  were  called 
upon  to  count  the  mild-eyed  cattle  that  contribute  so 
much  to  its  picturesqueness;  and  I  have  no  wish  to 
disturb  my  appreciation  of  the  spirit  of  a  place  con- 


ANCIENT  ROME 

secrated  by  ages  of  heroic  history,  by  entertaining 
any  of  the  learned  conjectures  of  professional  anti- 
quarians. It  is  enough  for  me  to  know  that  I  am 
standing  on  the  spot  where  Romulus  built  his  straw- 
thatched  palace,  and  his  irreverent  brother  leaped 
over  the  walls  of  the  future  mistress  of  the  nations. 
Standing  in  the  midst  of  the  relics  of  the  grandeur  of 
imperial  Rome,  the  whole  of  her  wonderful  history 
is  constantly  acting  over  again  in  my  mind.  The 
stern  simplicity  of  those  who  laid  the  foundations  of 
her  greatness,  the  patriotic  daring  of  those  who  ex- 
tended her  power,  the  wisdom  of  those  who  termi- 
nated civil  strife  by  compelling  the  divided  citizens  to 
unite  against  a  foreign  foe,  are  all  present  to  me.  In 
that  august  place  where  Cicero  pleaded,  gazing  upon 
that  mount  where  captive  kings  did  homage  to  the 
masters  of  the  world,  your  mere  antiquarian,  with 
his  pestilent  theories  and  measurements,  seems  to  me 
little  better  than  a  profaner.  When  I  see  such  a  one 
scratching  about  the  base  of  some  majestic  column  in 
the  Forum  (although  I  cannot  but  be  grateful  to 
those  whose  researches  have  developed  the  greatness 
of  the  imperial  city,)  I  do  long  to  interrupt  him,  and 
remind  him  that  his  "tread  is  on  an  empire's  dust." 
I  wish  to  recall  him  from  the  petty  details  in  which 
he  delights,  and  have  him  enjoy  with  me  the  gran- 
deur and  dignity  of  the  whole  scene. 

The  triumphal  arches, — the  monuments  of  the  cul- 
tivation of  those  remote  ages,  no  less  than  of  the 
power  of  the  state  which  erected  them, — the  me- 
morials of  the  luxury  that  paved  the  way  to  the  de- 
cline of  that  power — all  these  things  impress  me  with 
the  thought  of  the  long  years  that  intervened  be 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

tween  that  splendour  and  the  times  when  the  seat  of 
universal  empire  was  inhabited  only  by  shepherds 
and  their  flocks.  It  wearies  me  to  think  of  the  long 
centuries  of  human  effort  that  were  required  to  bring 
Rome  to  its  culminating  point  of  glory;  and  it  affords 
me  a  melancholy  kind  of  amusement  to  contrast  the 
spirit  of  those  who  laid  the  deep  and  strong  founda- 
tions of  that  prosperity  and  power,  with  that  of 
some  modern  sages,  to  whom  a  hundred  years  are  a 
respectable  antiquity,  and  who  seem  to  think  that 
commercial  enterprise  and  the  will  of  a  fickle  popu- 
lace form  as  secure  a  basis  for  a  state  as  private 
virtue,  and  the  principle  of  obedience  to  law.  I  know 
a  country,  yet  in  the  first  century  of  its  national  ex- 
istence, full  of  hope  and  ambition,  and  possessing 
advantages  such  as  never  before  fell  to  the  lot  of  a 
young  empire,  but  lacking  in  those  powers  which 
made  Rome  what  she  was.  If  that  country,  "the 
newest  born  of  nations,  the  latest  hope  of  mankind," 
which  has  so  rapidly  risen  to  a  power  surpassing  in 
extent  that  of  ancient  Rome,  and  bears  within  itself 
the  elements  of  the  decay  that  ruined  the  old  empire, 
— wealth,  vice,  corruption, — if  she  could  overcome 
the  vain  notion  that  hers  is  an  exceptional  case,  and 
that  she  is  not  subject  to  that  great  law  of  nature 
which  makes  personal  virtue  the  corner-stone  of  na- 
tional stability  and  the  lack  of  that  its  bane,  and  could 
look  calmly  upon  the  remains  of  old  Rome's  gran- 
deur, she  might  learn  a  great  lesson.  Contemplat- 
ing the  patient  formation  of  that  far-reaching 
dominion  until  it  found  its  perfect  consummation  in 
the  age  of  Augustus,  ( Tantte  molis  erat  Romanam 
condere  gentem,)  she  would  see  that  true  national 

H66;] 


ANCIENT  ROME 

greatness  is  not  "the  hasty  product  of  a  day" ;  that 
demagogues  and  adventurers,  who  have  made  poli- 
tics their  trade,  are  not  the  architects  of  that 
greatness ;  and  that  the  parchment  on  which  the  con- 
stitution and  laws  of  a  country  are  written,  might  as 
well  be  used  for  drum-heads  when  reverence  and 
obedience  have  departed  from  the  hearts  of  its 
people. 

A  gifted  representative  of  a  name  which  is  classi- 
cal in  the  history  of  the  drama,  some  years  ago  gave 
to  the  world  a  journal  of  her  residence  in  Rome. 
She  called  her  volume  "A  Year  of  Consolation"— a 
title  as  true  as  it  is  poetical.  Indeed  I  know  of  noth- 
ing more  soothing  to  the  spirit  than  a  walk  through 
these  ancient  streets,  or  an  hour  of  meditation  amid 
these  remains  of  fallen  majesty.  To  stand  in  the 
arena  of  the  Coliseum  in  the  noonday  glare,  or  when 
those  ponderous  arches  cast  their  lengthened  shad- 
ows on  the  spot  where  the  first  Roman  Christians 
were  sacrificed  to  make  a  holiday  for  a  brutalized 
populace, — to  muse  in  the  Pantheon,  that  changeless 
temple  of  a  living,  and  monument  of  a  dead,  wor- 
ship, and  reflect  on  the  many  generations  that  have 
passed  beneath  its  majestic  portico  from  the  days  of 
Agrippa  to  our  own,— to  listen  to  the  birds  that  sing 
amid  the  shrubbery  which  decks  the  stupendous 
arches  of  the  Baths  of  Caracalla,— to  be  over- 
whelmed by  the  stillness  of  the  Campagna  while  the 
eye  is  filled  with  that  rolling  verdure  which  seems  in 
the  hazy  distance  like  the  waves  of  the  unquiet  sea — 
what  are  all  these  things  but  consolations  in  the 
truest  sense  of  the  word  ?  What  is  the  bitterest  grief 
that  ever  pierced  a  human  heart  through  a  long  life 

£67] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

of  sorrows,  compared  to  the  dumb  woe  of  that 
mighty  desolation?  What  are  our  brief  sufferings, 
when  they  are  brought  into  the  august  presence  of  a 
mourner  who  has  seen  her  hopes  one  by  one  taken 
from  her,  through  centuries  of  war  and  rapine,  neg- 
lect and  silent  decay? 

Among  all  of  Rome's  monuments  of  antiquity, 
there  are  few  that  impress  me  so  strangely  as  those 
old  Egyptian  obelisks,  the  trophies  of  the  victorious 
emperors,  which  the  pontiffs  have  made  to  contribute 
so  greatly  to  the  adornment  of  their  capital.  It  is 
almost  impossible  to  turn  a  corner  of  one  of  the  prin- 
cipal streets  of  the  city  without  seeing  one  of  these 
peculiar  shafts  that  give  a  fine  finish  to  the  perspec- 
tive. If  their  cold  granite  forms  could  speak,  what 
a  strange  history  they  would  reveal !  They  were  wit- 
nesses of  the  achievements  of  a  power  which  reached 
its  noonday  splendour  centuries  before  the  shepherd 
Faustulus  took  the  foundling  brothers  into  his  cottage 
on  the  banks  of  the  Tiber.  The  civilization  of 
which  they  are  the  relics  had  declined  before  the 
Roman  kings  inaugurated  that  which  afterwards  re- 
claimed all  Europe  from  the  barbarians.  Yet  there 
they  stand  as  grim  and  silent  as  if  they  had  but  yes- 
terday been  rescued  from  the  captivity  of  the  native 
quarry,  and  had  never  seen  a  nobler  form  than  those 
of  the  dusty  artisans  who  wrought  them — as  dull  and 
unimpressible  as  some  of  the  stupid  tourists  whom  I 
see  daily  gazing  upon  these  glorious  monuments,  and 
seeing  only  so  much  brick  and  stone. 


MODERN   ROME 


A:KNOWLEDGING  as  I  do  the  charms  which 
the  Rome  of  antiquity  possesses  for  me,  it 
must  still  be  confessed  that  the  Rome  of  the  present 
time  enchants  me  with  attractions  scarcely  less  po- 
tent. Religion  has  consecrated  many  of  the  spots 
which  history  had  made  venerable,  and  thus  added  a 
new  lustre  to  their  associations.  I  turn  from  the 
broken  columns  and  gray  mouldering  walls  of  old 
Rome  to  those  fanes,  "so  ancient,  yet  so  new,"  in 
which  the  piety  of  centuries  has  found  its  enduring 
expression.  Beneath  their  sounding  arches,  by  the 
mild  light  of  the  lamps  that  burn  unceasingly  around 
their  shrines,  who  would  vex  his  brain  with  anti- 
quarian lore?  We  may  notice  that  the  pavement  is 
worn  away  by  the  multitudes  which  have  been  drawn 
thither  by  curiosity  or  devotion;  but  we  feel  that 
Heaven's  chronology  is  not  an  affair  of  months  and 
years,  and  that  Peter  and  Paul,  Gregory  and  Leo, 
are  not  mere  personages  in  a  drama  upon  the  first 
acts  of  which  the  curtain  long  since  descended.  Who 
thinks  of  antiquity  while  he  inhabits  that  world  of 
art  which  Rome  encloses  within  her  walls?  Those 
are  not  the  triumphs  of  a  past  age  alone;  they  are 
the  triumphs  of  to-day.  The  Apollo's  bearing  is  not 
less  manly,  its  step  not  less  elastic,  than  it  was  in  that 
remote  age  when  its  unknown  sculptor  threw  aside 
his  chisel  and  gazed  upon  his  finished  work.  To- 

ll 69] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

day's  sunshine  is  not  more  clear  and  golden  than  that 
which  glows  in  the  landscapes  of  Claude  Lorraine, 
though  he  who  thus  made  the  sunbeams  his  servants 
has  been  sleeping  for  nearly  two  centuries  in  the 
dusty  vaults  of  Trinita  de'  Monti.  Were  Raphael's 
deathless  faces  more  real  while  he  was  living  than 
they  are  now?  Were  Guide's  and  Domenichino's 
triumphs  more  worthy  of  admiration  while  the  paint 
was  wet  upon  them?  or  were  the  achievements  of 
that  giant  of  art,  Michel  Angelo,  ever  more  wonder- 
ful than  now?  No;  these  great  works  take  no  note 
of  time,  and  confer  upon  the  city  which  contains  them 
something  of  their  own  immortality. 

I  have  heard  people  regret  that  so  many  of  our 
artists  should  expatriate  themselves,  and  spend  their 
lives  in  Rome  or  Florence.  To  me,  however,  nothing 
seems  more  natural;  and  if  I  were  a  painter,  or  a 
sculptor,  I  feel  certain  that  I  should  share  the  com- 
mon weakness  of  the  profession  for  a  place  of  resi- 
dence in  harmony  with  my  art.  What  sympathy  can 
a  true  artist  feel  with  a  state  of  society  in  which  he  is 
regarded  by  nine  people  out  of  ten  as  a  useless 
member,  because  he  does  not  directly  aid  in  the  pro- 
duction of  a  given  quantity  of  grain  or  of  cloth? 
Every  stroke  of  his  brush,  every  movement  of  his 
hands  in  moulding  the  obedient  clay,  is  a  protest 
against  the  low,  mean,  materialistic  views  of  life 
which  prevail  among  us;  and  it  is  too  much  to  ask  of 
any  man  that  he  shall  spend  his  days  in  trying  to  live 
peaceably  in  an  enemy's  camp.  When  figs  and  dates 
become  common  articles  of  food  in  Lapland,  and  the 
bleak  sides  of  the  hills  of  New  Hampshire  are 
adorned  with  the  graceful  palm  tree  and  the  luxu- 


MODERN  ROME 

riant  foliage  of  the  tropics,  you  may  expect  art  to 
flourish  in  a  community  whose  god  is  commerce,  and 
whose  chief  religious  duty  is  money-getting. 

Truly  the  life  of  an  artist  in  Rome  is  about  as  near 
the  perfection  of  earthly  happiness  as  is  commonly 
vouchsafed  to  mortal  man.  The  tone  of  society,  and 
all  the  surroundings  of  the  artist,  are  so  congenial 
that  no  poverty  nor  privation  can  seriously  interfere 
with  them.  The  streets,  with  their  architectural 
marvels,  the  trim  gardens  and  picturesque  cloisters  of 
the  old  religious  establishments,  the  magnificent 
villas  of  the  neighbourhood  of  the  city,  and  the  vast, 
mysterious  Campagna,  with  its  gigantic  aqueducts 
and  its  purple  atmosphere,  and  those  glorious  gal- 
leries which  at  the  same  time  gratify  the  taste  of  the 
artist  and  feed  his  ambition,— these  are  things  which 
are  as  free  to  him  as  the  blessed  sunlight  or  the  water 
that  sparkles  in  the  countless  fountains  of  the  Holy 
City.  I  do  not  wonder  that  artists  who  have  lived 
any  considerable  time  in  Rome  are  discontented  with 
the  feverish  restlessness  of  our  American  way  of  life, 
and  that,  after  "stifling  the  mighty  hunger  of  the 
heart"  through  two  or  three  wearisome  years  in  our 
western  world,  they  turn  to  Rome  as  to  a  fond 
mother,  upon  whose  breast  they  may  find  that  peace 
which  they  had  elsewhere  sought  in  vain. 

The  churches  of  Rome  impress  me  in  a  way  which 
I  have  never  heard  described  by  any  other  person.  I 
do  not  speak  of  St.  Peter's,  (that  "noblest  temple 
that  human  skill  ever  raised  to  the  honour  of  the 
Creator,")  nor  do  I  refer  to  those  other  magnificent 
basilicas  in  which  the  Christian  glories  of  eighteen 
centuries  sit  enthroned.  These  have  a  dignity  and 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

majesty  peculiarly  their  own,  and  the  most  thought- 
less cannot  tread  their  ancient  pavement  without 
being  for  the  time  subdued  into  awe  and  veneration. 
But  the  parish  churches  of  Rome,  the  churches  of  the 
various  religious  orders  and  congregations,  and 
those  numerous  little  temples  which  are  so  thickly 
scattered  through  the  city,  attract  me  in  a  manner 
especially  fascinating.  There  is  an  air  of  cosiness 
and  at-home-ativeness  about  them  which  cannot  be 
found  in  the  grander  fanes.  Some  of  them  seem  by 
their  architectural  finish  to  have  been  built  in  some 
fine  street  or  square,  and  to  have  wandered  off  in 
search  of  quiet  to  their  present  secluded  positions. 
It  is  beneath  their  arches  that  the  Roman  people  may 
be  seen.  Before  those  altars  you  may  see  men,  WO' 
men,  and  children  kneeling,  their  lips  scarcely  mov- 
ing with  the  petitions  which  are  heard  only  in  another 
world.  No  intruding  tourists,  eye-glassed  and  Mur- 
rayed,  interfere  with  their  devotions,  and  the  silence 
of  the  sacred  place  is  unbroken,  save  by  the  rattling 
of  a  rosary,  or  at  stated  times  by  the  swell  of  voices 
from  the  choir  chapel.  These  are  the  places  where 
the  real  power  of  the  Catholic  religion  makes  itself 
felt  more  unmistakably  than  in  the  grandest  cathe- 
drals, where  every  form  and  sound  is  eloquent  of 
worship.  I  remember  with  pleasure  that  once  in 
London,  as  I  was  passing  through  that  miserable 
quarter  which  lies  between  Westminster  Abbey  and 
Buckingham  Palace,  I  was  attracted  by  the  appear- 
ance of  a  number  of  people  who  were  entering  a  nar- 
row doorway.  One  or  two  stylish  carriages,  with 
crests  upon  their  panels,  and  drivers  in  livery,  stood 
before  the  dingy  building  which  seemed  to  wear  a 

[72] 


MODERN  ROME 

mysterious  air  of  semi-cleanliness  in  the  midst  of  the 
general  squalour.  I  followed  the  strange  collection 
of  the  representatives  of  opulence  and  the  extremest 
poverty  through  a  long  passage-way,  and  found  my- 
self in  a  large  room  which  was  tastefully  fitted  up  for 
a  Catholic  chapel.  The  simplicity  of  the  place, 
joined  with  its  strictly  ecclesiastical  look,  the  excellent 
music,  the  crowded  and  devout  congregation,  and 
the  almost  breathless  attention  which  was  paid  to  the 
simple  and  persuasive  eloquence  of  the  preacher, 
who  was  formerly  one  of  the  chief  ornaments  of  the 
established  church,  whose  highest  honours  he  had 
cast  aside  that  he  might  minister  more  effectually  to 
the  poor  and  despised, — all  these  things  astonished 
and  delighted  me.  To  see  that  church  preserving, 
even  in  its  hiddenness  and  poverty,  its  regard  for  the 
comeliness  of  God's  worship,  and  adorning  that 
humble  chapel  in  a  manner  which  showed  that  the 
spirit  which  erected  the  shrines  of  Westminster, 
Salisbury  and  York,  had  not  died  out,  carried  me 
back  in  spirit  to  the  catacombs  of  Rome,  where  the 
early  Christians  left  the  abiding  evidences  of  their 
zeal  for  the  beauty  of  the  house  of  God.  I  was  at 
that  time  fresh  from  the  continent,  and  my  mind  was 
occupied  with  the  remembrance  of  the  gorgeous 
churches  of  Italy.  Yet,  despite  my  recollection  of 
those  "forests  of  porphyry  and  marble,"  those  altars 
of  lapis  lazuli,  those  tabernacles  glittering  with  gold, 
and  silver,  and  precious  stones,  and  those  mosaics 
and  frescoes  whose  beauty  and  variety  almost  fatigue 
the  sense  of  the  beholder, — I  must  say  that  it  gave 
me  a  new  sense  of  the  dignity  and  grandeur  of  the 
ancient  Church,  to  see  her  in  the  midst  of  the  pov- 

C73] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

erty  and  obscurity  to  which  she  is  now  condemned  in 
the  land  which  once  professed  her  faith,  and  was 
once  thickly  planted  with  those  institutions  of  learn- 
ing and  charity  which  are  the  proudest  monuments  of 
her  progress.  A  large  ship,  under  full  sail,  running 
off  before  a  pleasant  breeze,  is  a  beautiful  sight;  but 
it  is  by  no  means  so  grandly  impressive  as  that  of  the 
same  ship,  under  close  canvas,  gallantly  riding  out 
the  merciless  gale  that  carried  destruction  to  every 
unseaworthy  craft  which  came  within  its  reach. 

I  am  not  one  of  those  who  lament  over  the  mil- 
lions which  have  been  expended  upon  the  churches  of 
Rome.  I  am  not  inclined  to  follow  the  sordid  prin- 
ciple of  that  apostle  who  is  generally  held  up  rather 
as  a  warning  than  an  example,  and  say  that  it  had 
been  better  if  the  sums  which  have  been  devoted  to 
architectural  ornament  had  been  withheld  and  given 
to  the  poor.  Religion  has  no  need,  it  is  true,  of 
these  visible  splendours,  any  more  than  of  set  forms 
and  modes  of  speech.  For  it  is  the  heart  that  be- 
lieves, and  loves,  and  prays.  But  we,  poor  mortals, 
so  enslaved  by  our  senses,  so  susceptible  to  external 
appearances,  need  every  thing  that  can  inspire  in  us 
a  respect  for  something  higher  than  ourselves,  or 
remind  us  of  the  glories  of  the  invisible,  eternal 
world.  And  can  we  doubt  that  He  who  praised  the 
action  of  that  pious  woman  who  poured  the  precious 
ointment  upon  His  sacred  head,  looks  with  compla- 
cency upon  the  sacrifices  which  are  made  for  the 
adornment  of  the  temples  devoted  to  His  worship? 
Is  it  a  right  principle  that  people  who  are  clad  in  ex- 
pensive garments,  who  are  not  content  unless  they 
are  surrounded  by  carved  or  enamelled  furniture, 

C743 


MODERN  ROME 

and  whose  feet  tread  daily  on  costly  tapestries, 
should  find  fault  with  the  generous  piety  which  has 
made  the  churches  of  Italy  what  they  are,  and  should 
talk  so  impressively  about  the  beauty  of  spiritual 
worship?  I  have  no  patience  with  these  advocates 
for  simplicity  in  every  thing  that  does  not  relate  to 
themselves  and  their  own  comforts. 

"  Shall  we  serve  Heaven  with  less  respect 
Than  we  do  minister  to  our  gross  selves  ?" 

I  care  not  how  simple  our  private  houses  may  be,  but 
I  advocate  liberality  and  splendour  in  our  public 
buildings  of  all  kinds,  for  the  sake  of  preserving  a 
due  respect  for  the  institutions  they  enshrine.  I  re- 
member, in  reading  one  of  the  old  classical  writers, 
— Sallust,  I  think, — in  my  young  days,  being  greatly 
impressed  by  his  declaration  that  private  luxury  is  a 
sure  forerunner  of  a  nation's  downfall,  and  that  it  is 
a  fatal  sign  for  the  dwellings  of  the  citizens  to  be 
spacious  and  magnificent,  while  the  public  edifices 
are  mean  and  unworthy.  Purely  intellectual  as  we 
may  think  ourselves,  we  are,  nevertheless,  somewhat 
deferential  to  the  external  proprieties  of  life,  and  I 
very  much  doubt  whether  the  most  reverential  of  us 
could  long  maintain  his  respect  for  the  Supreme 
Court  if  its  sessions  were  held  in  a  tap-room,  or  for 
religion,  if  its  ministers  prayed  and  preached  in  pea- 
jackets  and  top-boots. 

Displeasing  as  is  the  presence  of  most  of  the  Eng- 
lish-speaking tourists  one  meets  in  Rome,  there  are 
two  places  where  they  delight  to  congregate,  which 
yet  have  charms  for  me  that  not  even  Cockney  vul- 
garity or  Yankee  irreverence  can  destroy.  The 

C7S3 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

church  of  the  convent  of  Trinita  de'  Monti  wins  me, 
in  spite  of  the  throng  that  fills  its  nave  at  the  hour  of 
evening  every  Sunday  and  festival  day.  Some  years 
since,  when  I  first  visited  Rome,  the  music  which  was 
heard  there  was  of  the  highest  order  of  merit.  At 
present  the  nuns  of  the  Sacred  Heart  have  no  such 
great  artistes  in  their  community  as  they  had  then, 
but  the  music  of  their  choir  is  still  one  of  those  things 
which  he  who  has  once  heard  can  never  forget.  It  is 
the  only  church  in  Rome  in  which  I  have  heard 
female  voices;  and,  though  I  much  prefer  the  great 
male  choirs  of  the  basilicas,  there  is  a  soothing  sim- 
plicity in  the  music  at  Trinita  de'  Monti  which  goes 
home  to  almost  every  heart.  I  have  seen  giddy  and 
unthinking  girls,  who  laughed  at  the  ceremonial  they 
did  not  understand,  subdued  to  reverence  by  those 
strains,  and  supercilious  Englishmen  reduced  to  the 
humiliating  necessity  of  wiping  their  eyes.  Indeed, 
the  whole  scene  is  so  harmoniously  impressive  that 
its  enchantment  cannot  be  resisted.  The  solemn 
church,  lighted  only  by  the  twilight  rays,  and  the 
tapers  upon  the  high  altar, — the  veiled  forms  of  the 
pious  sisterhood  and  their  young  pupils  in  the  grated 
sanctuary, — the  clouding  of  the  fragrant  incense, — 
the  tinkling  of  that  silvery  bell  and  of  the  chains  of 
the  swinging  censer, — those  ancient  and  dignified 
rites, — and  over  all,  those  clear,  angelic  voices  pray- 
ing and  praising,  in  litany  and  hymn — all  combine  to 
make  up  a  worship,  one  moment  of  which  would 
seem  enough  to  wipe  away  the  memory  of  a  lifetime 
of  folly,  and  disappointment,  and  sorrow. 

The  Sistine  Chapel  is  another  place  to  which  I  am 
bound  by  an  almost  supernatural  fascination.     My 


MODERN  ROME 

imperfect  eyesight  will  not  permit  me  to  enjoy  fully 
the  frescoes  that  adorn  its  lofty  walls;  but  I  feel  that 
I  am  in  the  presence  of  the  great  master  and  some  of 
his  mightiest  conceptions.  I  do  not  know  whether 
the  chapel  is  most  impressive  in  its  empty  state,  or 
when  thronged  for  some  great  religious  function.  In 
the  former  condition,  its  fine  proportions  and  its 
simplicity  satisfy  me  so  completely,  that  I  hardly 
wish  for  the  pomp  and  splendour  which  belong  to  it 
on  great  occasions.  I  know  of  nothing  more  grand 
than  the  sight  of  that  simple  throne  of  the  Sovereign 
Pontiff,  when  it  is  occupied  by  that  benignant  old 
man,  to  whom  more  than  two  hundred  millions  of 
people  look  with  veneration  as  to  a  father  and  a 
teacher, — and  surrounded  by  those  illustrious  prel- 
ates and  princes  who  compose  a  senate  of  moral  and 
intellectual  worth,  such  as  all  the  world  beside  cannot 
parallel.  Those  venerable  figures — those  gray  hairs 
— those  massive  foreheads,  and  those  resplendent 
robes  of  office,  seem  to  be  a  part  of  some  great  his- 
torical picture,  rather  than  a  reality  before  my  eyes. 
There  is  nothing  more  severe  in  actual  experience, 
or  more  satisfactory  in  the  recollection,  than  Holy 
Week  in  the  Sistine  Chapel.  The  crowd,  the  fatigue, 
and  the  presence  of  so  many  sight-seers,  who  have 
come  with  the  same  feeling  that  they  would  attend  an 
opera  or  a  play,  are  not  calculated  to  increase  one's 
bodily  comfort,  or  to  awaken  the  sentiments  proper 
to  so  sacred  a  season  as  that  which  is  then  commemo- 
rated. But  after  these  have  passed  away,  there  re- 
mains the  recollection,  which  time  does  not  diminish, 
but  makes  more  precious,  of  that  darkening  chapel 
and  the  bowed-down  heads  of  the  Pope  and  cardi- 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

nals,  of  the  music,  ''yearning  like  a  god  in  pain,"  of 
the  melodious  woe  of  the  Miserere,  the  plaintive 
majesty  of  the  Lamentations  and  the  Reproaches, 
and  the  shrill  dissonance  of  the  shouts  of  the  popu- 
lace in  the  gospel  narrative  of  the  crucifixion.  These 
are  things  which  would  outweigh  a  year  of  fatigue 
and  pain.  I  know  of  no  greater  or  more  sincere 
tribute  to  the  perfections  of  the  Sistine  choir,  and  the 
genius  of  Allegri  and  Palestrina,  than  the  patience 
with  which  so  many  people  submit  to  be  packed,  like 
herring  in  a  box,  into  that  small  chapel.  But  old  and 
gouty  as  I  am,  I  would  gladly  undergo  all  the  dis- 
comforts of  that  time  to  hear  those  sounds  once 
more. 

I  hear  some  people  complain  of  the  beggars,  and 
wonder  why  Rome,  with  her  splendid  system  of 
charities  for  the  relief  of  every  form  of  suffering, 
permits  mendicancy.  For  myself,  I  am  not  inclined 
to  complain  either  of  the  beggars  or  of  the  merciful 
government,  which  refuses  to  look  upon  them  as 
offenders  against  its  laws.  On  the  contrary,  it  ap- 
pears to  me  rather  creditable  than  otherwise  to 
Rome,  that  she  is  so  far  behind  the  age,  as  not  to 
class  poverty  with  crime  among  social  evils.  I  have 
a  sincere  respect  for  this  feature  of  the  Catholic 
Church;  this  regard  for  the  poor  as  her  most 
precious  inheritance,  and  this  unwillingness  that  her 
children  should  think  that,  because  she  has  organized 
a  vast  system  of  benevolence,  they  are  absolved  of 
the  duty  of  private  charity.  In  this  wisdom,  which 
thus  provides  for  the  exercise  of  kindly  feelings  in 
alms-giving,  may  be  found  one  of  the  most  attractive 
characteristics  of  the  Roman  Church.  This,  no  less 


MODERN  ROME 

than  the  austere  religious  orders  which  she  has 
founded,  shows  in  what  sense  she  receives  the  beati- 
tude, "Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit."  And  the  same 
kind  spirit  of  equality  may  be  seen  in  her  churches 
and  cathedrals,  where  rich  and  poor  kneel  upon  the 
same  pavement,  before  their  common  God  and 
Saviour,  and  in  her  cloisters,  and  universities,  and 
schools,  where  social  distinctions  cannot  enter. 

When  I  walk  through  the  cloisters  of  these  vener- 
able institutions  of  learning,  or  gaze  upon  the  ancient 
city  from  Monte  Mario,  or  the  Janiculum,  it  seems 
to  me  that  never  until  now  did  I  appreciate  the 
world's  indebtedness  to  Rome.  Dislike  it  as  we  may, 
we  cannot  disguise  the  fact,  that  to  her  every  Chris- 
tian nation  owes,  in  a  great  measure,  its  civilization, 
its  literature,  and  its  religion.  The  endless  empire 
which  Virgil's  muse  foretold,  is  still  hers;  and,  as  one 
of  her  ancient  Christian  poets  said,  those  lands  which 
were  not  conquered  by  her  victorious  arms  are  held 
in  willing  obedience  by  her  religion.  When  I  think 
how  all  our  modern  civilization,  our  art,  letters,  and 
jurisprudence,  sprang  originally  from  Rome,  it  ap- 
pears to  me  that  a  narrow  religious  prejudice  has 
prevented  our  forming  a  due  estimate  of  her  services 
to  humanity.  To  some,  the  glories  of  the  ancient 
empire,  the  memory  of  the  days  when  her  sover- 
eignty extended  from  Britain  to  the  Ganges,  and  her 
capital  counted  its  inhabitants  by  millions,  seem  to 
render  all  her  later  history  insignificant  and  dull ;  but 
to  my  mind  the  moral  dignity  and  power  of  Christian 
Rome  is  as  superior  to  her  old  military  omnipotence 
as  it  is  possible  for  the  human  intellect  to  conceive. 
The  ancient  emperors,  with  all  their  power,  could 

1791 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

not  carry  the  Roman  name  much  beyond  the  limits  of 
Europe;  the  rulers  who  have  succeeded  them  have 
made  the  majestic  language  of  Rome  familiar  to  two 
hemispheres,  and  have  built  up,  by  spiritual  arms,  the 
mightiest  empire  that  the  world  has  ever  seen.  For 
me,  Rome's  most  enduring  glories  are  the  memories 
of  the  times  when  her  great  missionary  orders  civil- 
ized and  evangelized  the  countries  which  her  arms 
had  won,  when  her  martyrs  sowed  the  seed  of 
Christianity  with  their  blood,  and  her  confessors  il- 
lumined the  world  with  their  virtues;  when  her  pon- 
tiffs, single-handed,  turned  back  barbarian  invasions, 
or  mitigated  the  severities  of  the  feudal  age,  or  pro- 
tected the  people  by  laying  their  ban  upon  the  tyrants 
who  oppressed  them,  or  defended  the  sanctity  of 
marriage,  and  the  rights  of  helpless  women  against 
divorce-seeking  monarchs  and  conquerors.  These 
things  are  the  true  fulfilment  of  the  glowing  prophecy 
of  Rome's  greatness,  which  Virgil  puts  into  the 
mouth  of  Anchises,  when  ^neas  visits  the  Elysian 
Fields,  and  hears  from  his  old  father  that  the  mis- 
sion of  the  government  he  is  about  to  found  is  to  rule 
the  world  by  moral  power,  to  make  peace  between 
opposing  nations,  to  spare  the  subject,  and  to  subdue 
the  proud: 

"Tu  regere  imperio  populos,  Romane,  memento; 
Hse  tibi  erunt  artes,  pacisque  imponere  morem, 
Parcere  subjectis,  et  debellare  superbos." 


ROME  TO   MARSEILLES 

THE  weather  was  fearfully  hot  the  day  of  my 
departure  from  Rome.  The  sun  was  staring 
down,  without  winking,  upon  that  wonderful  old 
city,  as  if  he  loved  the  sight.  The  yellow  current  of 
old  Father  Tiber  seemed  yellower  than  ever  in  the 
glare.  Except  from  sheer  necessity,  no  person 
moved  abroad;  for  the  atmosphere,  which  early  in 
the  morning  had  seemed  like  airs  from  heaven,  be- 
fore noon  had  become  most  uncomfortably  like  a 
blast  from  the  opposite  direction.  The  Piazza  di 
Spagna  was  like  Tadmor  in  the  wilderness.  Not  a 
single  English  tourist,  with  his  well-read  Murray 
under  his  arm,  was  to  be  seen  there;  not  a  carnage 
driver  broke  the  stillness  of  the  place  with  his  poly- 
glot solicitations  to  ride.  The  great  staircase  of 
Trinita  de'  Monti  seemed  an  impossibility;  to  have 
climbed  up  its  weary  ascent  under  that  broiling  sun 
would  have  been  poor  entertainment  for  man  or 
beast.  The  squares  of  the  city  were  like  furnaces, 
and  made  one  mentally  curse  architecture,  and  bless 
the  narrow,  shady  streets.  The  soldiers  on  guard  at 
the  gates  and  in  the  public  places  looked  as  if  they 
could  n't  help  it.  Now  and  then  a  Capuchin  monk, 
in  his  heavy,  brown  habit,  girded  with  the  knotted 
cord,  toiled  along  on  some  errand  of  benevolence, 
and  made  one  marvel  at  his  endurance.  Occasion- 
ally a  cardinal  rolled  by  in  scarlet  state,  looking  as  if 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

he  gladly  would  have  exchanged  the  bondage  of  his 
dignity  and  power  for  a  single  day  of  virtuous  lib- 
erty in  linen  pantaloons. 

Traffic  seemed  to  have  departed  this  life;  there 
were  no  buyers,  and  the  shopkeepers  slumbered  at 
their  counters.  The  cafes  were  shrouded  in  their 
long,  striped  awnings,  and  seemed  to  invite  company 
by  their  well-wet  pavement.  A  few  old  Romans 
found  energy  enough  to  call  for  an  occasional  ice  or 
lemonade,  and  talked  in  the  intervals  about  Pammer- 
stone,  and  his  agent,  Mazzini.  How  the  sun  blazed 
down  into  the  Coliseum !  Not  a  breath  of  air  stirred 
the  foliage  that  clothes  that  mighty  ruin.  Even  the 
birds  were  mute.  To  have  crossed  that  broad  arena 
would  have  perilled  life  as  surely  as  in  those  old  days 
when  the  first  Roman  Christians  there  confessed 
their  faith.  On  such  a  day,  one's  parting  visits  must 
necessarily  be  brief;  so  I  left  the  amphitheatre,  and 
walked  along  the  dusty  Via  Sacra,  pausing  a  moment 
to  ponder  on  the  scene  of  Cicero's  triumphs,  and  of 
so  many  centuries  of  thrilling  history,  and  coming  to 
the  conclusion  that,  if  it  were  such  a  day  as  that  when 
Virginius  in  that  place  slew  his  dear  little  daughter, 
the  blow  was  merciful  indeed.  The  market-place  in 
front  of  the  Pantheon,  usually  so  thronged  and 
lively,  was  almost  deserted.  The  fresh,  bright  vege- 
tables had  either  all  been  sold,  or  had  refused  to 
grow  in  such  a  heat.  But  the  Pantheon  itself  was 
unchanged.  There  it  stood,  in  all  its  severe  gran- 
deur, majestic  as  in  the  days  of  the  Caesars,  the  em- 
bodiment of  heathenism,  the  exponent  of  the  worship 
of  the  old,  inexorable  gods, — of  justice  without 
mersy,  and  power  without  love.  Its  interior  seemed 

[82] 


ROME  TO  MARSEILLES 

cool  and  refreshing,  for  no  heat  can  penetrate  that 
stupendous  pile  of  masonry,  —  and  I  gathered  new 
strength  from  my  short  visit.  It  was  a  fine  thought 
in  the  old  Romans  to  adapt  the  temples  of  heathen- 
ism to  the  uses  of  Christianity.  The  contrasts  sug- 
gested to  our  minds  by  this  practice  are  very  striking. 
When  we  see  that  the  images  of  the  old  revengeful 
and  impure  divinities  have  given  place  to  those  of  the 
humble  and  self-denying  heroes  of  Christianity,  that 
the  Saviour  of  the  world  stretches  out  His  arms  upon 
the  cross,  in  the  place  from  which  the  haughty  Jupi- 
ter once  hurled  his  thunderbolts,  we  are  borne  at 
once  to  a  conclusion  more  irresistible  than  any  that 
the  mere  force  of  language  could  produce.  One  of 
our  own  poets  felt  this  in  Rome,  and  expressed  this 
same  idea  in  graceful  verse:— 

"The  goddess  of  the  woods  and  fields, 
The  healthful  huntress  undefiled, 
Now  with  her  fabled  brother  yields 
To  sinless  Mary  and  her  Child." 

But  I  must  hurry  on  towards  St.  Peter's.  There 
are  three  places  in  Rome  which  every  one  visits  as 
soon  as  possible  after  he  arrives,  and  as  short  a  time 
as  may  be  before  his  departure— the  Coliseum,  the 
Pantheon,  and  St.  Peter's.  The  narrow  streets  be- 
tween the  Pantheon  and  the  Bridge  of  St.  Angelo 
were  endurable,  because  they  were  shady.  It  was 
necessary  to  be  careful,  however,  and  not  trip  over 
any  of  the  numerous  Roman  legs  whose  proprietors 
were  stretched  out  upon  the  pavement  in  various  pic- 
turesque postures,  sleeping  away  the  long  hours  of 
that  scorching  day.  At  last  the  bridge  is  reached. 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

Bernini's  frightful  statues,  which  deform  its  balus- 
trades, seem  to  be  writhing  under  the  influence  of  the 
sun.  I  am  quite  confident  that  St.  Veronica's  napkin 
was  curling  with  the  heat.  The  bronze  archangel 
stood  as  usual  upon  the  summit  of  the  Castle  of  St. 
Angelo.  I  stopped  a  few  moments,  thinking  that  he 
might  see  the  expediency  of  sheathing  his  sword  and 
retreating,  before  he  should  be  compelled,  in  the  con- 
fusion  of  such  a  blaze  as  that,  to  run  away;  but  it  was 
useless.  I  moved  on  towards  St.  Peter's,  and  he  still 
kept  guard  there  as  brazen-faced  as  ever.  The  great 
square  in  front  of  the  basilica  seemed  to  have 
scooped  up  its  fill  of  heat,  and  every  body  knows  that 
it  is  capable  of  containing  a  great  deal.  The  few 
persons  whom  devotion  or  love  of  art  had  tempted 
out  in  such  a  day,  approached  it  under  the  shade  of 
its  beautiful  colonnades.  I  was  obliged  to  content 
myself  with  the  music  of  one  of  those  superb  founr 
tains  only,  for  the  workmen  were  making  a  new 
basin  for  the  other.  St.  Peter's  never  seemed  to  me 
so  wonderful,  never  filled  me  up  so  completely,  as  it 
did  then.  The  contrast  of  the  heat  I  had  been 
in  with  that  atmosphere  of  unchangeable  coolness, 
the  quiet  of  the  vast  area,  the  fewness  of  people  mov- 
ing about,  all  conspired  to  impress  me  with  a  new 
sense  of  the  majesty  and  holiness  of  the  place.  The 
quiet,  unflickering  blaze  of  the  numerous  lamps  that 
burn  unceasingly  around  the  tomb  of  the  Prince  of 
the  Apostles  seemed  a  beacon  of  immortality.  To  one 
who  could  at  that  hour  recall  the  bustle  and  turmoil 
of  the  Boulevards  of  Paris,  or  of  the  Strand,  or  of 
Broadway,  the  vast  basilica  itself  seemed  to  be  an 
island  of  peace  in  the  tempestuous  ocean  of  the 


ROME  TO  MARSEILLES 

world.  I  am  not  so  blind  a  lover  of  Gothic  architec- 
ture that  I  can  find  no  beauty  nor  religious  feeling  in 
the  Italian  churches.  I  prefer,  it  is  true,  the  "long- 
drawn  aisle  and  fretted  vault,"  and  the  "storied  win- 
dows richly  dight";  but  I  cannot  for  that  reason 
sneer  at  the  gracefully  turned  arches,  the  mosaic 
walls  and  domes  rich  in  frescoes  and  precious  mar- 
bles, that  delight  one's  eyes  in  Italy.  Both  styles  are 
good  in  their  proper  places.  The  Gothic  and  Nor- 
man, with  their  high-pitched  roofs,  are  the  natural 
growth  of  the  snowy  north,  and  to  attempt  to  trans- 
plant them  to  a  land  where  heat  is  to  be  guarded 
against,  were  as  absurd  as  to  expect  the  pine  and  fir 
to  take  the  place  of  the  fig  tree  and  the  palm.  Talk 
as  eloquently  as  we  may  about  being  superior  to  ex- 
ternal impressions,  I  defy  any  man  to  breathe  the 
quiet  atmosphere  of  any  of  these  old  continental 
churches  for  a  few  moments,  without  feeling  that  he 
has  gathered  new  strength  therefrom  to  tread  the 
thorns  of  life.  Lamartine  has  spoken  eloquently  on 
this  theme:  "Ye  columns  who  veil  the  sacred  asylums 
where  my  eyes  dare  not  penetrate,  at  the  foot  of 
your  immovable  trunks  I  come  to  sigh!  Cast  over 
me  your  deep  shades,  render  the  darkness  more  ob- 
scure, and  the  silence  more  profound!  Forests  of 
porphyry  and  marble  !  the  air  which  the  soul  breathes 
under  your  arches  is  full  of  mystery  and  of  peace ! 
Let  love  and  anxious  cares  seek  shade  and  solitude 
under  the  green  shelter  of  groves,  to  soothe  their 
secret  wounds.  O  darkness  of  the  sanctuary !  the  eye 
of  religion  prefers  thee  to  the  wood  which  the  breeze 
disturbs!  Nothing  changes  thy  foliage;  thy  still 
shade  is  the  image  of  motionless  eternity!" 

1*51 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

There  was  not  time  to  linger  long.  The  pressure 
of  worldly  engagements  was  felt  even  at  the  shrine 
of  the  apostles.  I  walked  about,  and  tried  to  recall 
the  many  splendid  religious  pageants  I  had  there  wit- 
nessed, and  wondered  sorrowfully  whether  I  should 
ever  again  listen  to  that  matchless  choir,  or  have  my 
heart  stirred  to  its  depths  by  the  silver  trumpets  that 
reecho  under  that  sonorous  vault  in  the  most  solemn 
moment  of  religion's  holiest  rite.  Once  more  out  in 
the  clear  hot  atmosphere  which  seemed  hotter  than 
before.  The  Supreme  Pontiff  was  absent  from  his 
capital,  and  the  Vatican  was  comparatively  empty. 
The  Swiss  guards,  in  their  fantastic  but  picturesque 
uniform,  were  loitering  about  the  foot  of  the  grand 
staircase,  and  sighing  for  a  breath  of  the  cool  air  of 
their  Alpine  home.  I  took  a  last  long  gaze  at  that 
grand  old  pile  of  buildings, — the  home  of  all  that  is 
most  wonderful  in  art,  the  abode  of  that  power  which 
overthrew  the  old  Roman  empire,  inaugurated  the 
civilization  of  Europe,  and  planted  Christianity  in 
every  quarter  of  the  globe, — and  then  turned  my 
unwilling  feet  homewards.  In  my  course  I  passed 
the  foot  of  the  Janiculum  Hill:  it  was  too  hot,  how- 
ever, to  think  o*  climbing  up  to  the  convent  of  Sant' 
Onofrio— though  I  would  gladly  have  paid  a  final 
visit  to  that  lovely  spot  where  the  munificence  of 
Pius  IX.  has  just  completed  a  superb  sepulchre  for 
the  repose  of  Tasso.  So  I  crossed  the  Tiber  in  one 
of  those  little  ferry  boats  which  are  attached  to  a 
cable  stretched  over  the  river,  and  thus  are  swung 
across  by  the  movement  of  the  current,  —  a  labour- 
saving  arrangement  preeminently  Roman  in  its  char- 
acter,— and  soon  found  myself  in  my  lodgings. 

£863 


ROME  TO  MARSEILLES 

However  warm  the  weather  may  be  in  Rome,  one 
can  keep  tolerably  comfortable  so  long  as  he  does  not 
move  about,— thanks  to  the  thick  walls  and  heavy 
wooden  window  shutters  of  the  houses,— so  I  found 
my  room  a  cool  asylum  after  my  morning  of  labo- 
rious pleasure. 

At  last,  the  good  byes  having  all  been  said,  behold 
me,  with  my  old  portmanteau,  (covered  with  its 
many-coloured  coat  of  baggage  labels,  those  trophies 
of  many  a  hard  campaign  of  travel,)  at  the  office  of 
the  diligence  for  Civita  Vecchia.  The  luggage  and 
the  passengers  having  been  successfully  stowed  away, 
the  lumbering  vehicle  rolled  down  the  narrow  streets, 
and  we  were  soon  outside  the  gate  that  opens  upon 
the  old  Aurelian  Way.  Here  the  passports  were 
examined,  the  postilions  cracked  their  whips,  and  I 
felt  indeed  that  I  was  "banished  from  Rome."  It  is 
a  sad  thing  to  leave  Rome.  I  have  seen  people  who 
have  made  but  a  brief  stay  there  shed  more  tears  on 
going  away  than  they  ever  did  on  a  departure  from 
home;  but  for  one  who  has  lived  there  long  enough 
to  feel  like  a  Roman  citizen— to  feel  that  the  broken 
columns  of  the  Forum  have  become  a  part  of  his 
being— to  feel  as  familiar  with  St.  Peter's  and  the 
Vatican  as  with  the  King's  Chapel  and  the  Tremont 
House— it  is  doubly  hard  to  go  away.  The  old  city, 
so  "rich  with  the  spoils  of  time,"  seems  invested  with 
a  personality  that  appeals  most  powerfully  to  every 
man,  and  would  fain  hold  him  back  from  returning 
to  the  world.  The  lover  of  art  there  finds  its  choicest 
treasures  ever  open  to  him;  the  artist  there  finds  an 
abundance  of  employment  for  his  chisel  or  his  brush; 
the  man  of  business  there  finds  an  asylum  from  the 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

vexing  cares  of  a  commercial  career;  the  student  of 
antiquity  or  of  history  can  there  take  his  fill  amid  the 
''wrecks  of  a  world  whose  ashes  still  are  warm,"  and 
listen  to  the  centuries  receding  into  the  unalterable 
past  with  their  burdens  of  glory  or  of  crime;  the 
lover  of  practical  benevolence  will  there  be  delighted 
by  the  inspection  of  establishments  for  the  relief  of 
every  possible  form  of  want  and  suffering;  the  en- 
thusiast for  education  finds  there  two  universities  and 
hundreds  of  public  schools  of  every  grade,  and  all  as 
free  as  the  bright  water  that  sparkles  in  Rome's 
countless  fountains;  the  devout  can  there  rekindle 
their  devotion  at  the  shrines  of  apostles  and  martyrs, 
and  breathe  the  holy  air  of  cloisters  in  which  saints 
have  lived  and  died,  or  join  their  voices  with  those 
that  resound  in  old  churches,  whose  pavements  are 
furrowed  by  the  knees  of  pious  generations;  the  ad- 
mirer of  pomp,  and  power,  and  historic  associations 
can  there  witness  the  more  than  regal  magnificence 
of  a  power,  compared  to  which  the  houses  of  Bour- 
bon or  of  Hapsburg  are  but  of  yesterday;  the  lover 
of  republican  simplicity  can  there  find  subject  for 
admiration  in  the  facility  of  access  to  the  highest 
authorities,  and  in  the  perfection  of  his  favourite 
elective  system  by  which  the  supreme  power  is  per- 
petuated. There  is,  in  short,  no  class  of  men  to 
whom  Rome  does  not  attach  itself.  People  may 
complain  during  their  first  week  that  it  is  dull,  or 
melancholy,  or  dirty;  but  you  generally  find  them 
sorry  enough  to  go  away,  and  looking  back  to  their 
residence  there  as  the  happiest  period  of  their  exist- 
ence. Somebody  has  said, — and  I  wish  that  I  could 
recall  the  exact  words,  they  are  so  true, — that  when 


ROME  TO  MARSEILLES 

we  leave  Paris,  or  Naples,  or  Florence,  we  feel  a 
natural  sorrow,  as  if  we  were  parting  from  a  cher- 
ished friend;  but  on  our  departure  from  Rome  we 
feel  a  pang  like  that  of  separation  from  a  woman 
whom  we  love ! 

At  last  Rome  disappeared  from  sight  in  the  dusk 
of  evening,  and  the  discomforts  of  the  journey  began 
to  make  themselves  obtrusive.  The  night  air  in  Italy 
is  not  considered  healthy,  and  we  therefore  had  the 
windows  of  the  diligence  closed.  Like  Charles  Lamb 
after  the  oyster  pie,  we  were  "all  full  inside,"  and  a 
pretty  time  we  had  of  it.  As  to  respiration,  you 
might  as  well  have  expected  the  performance  of  that 
function  from  a  mackerel  occupying  the  centre  of  a 
well-packed  barrel  of  his  finny  comrades,  as  of  any 
person  inside  that  diligence.  Of  course  there  was  a 
baby  in  the  company,  and  of  course  the  baby  cried. 
I  could  not  blame  it,  for  even  a  fat  old  gentleman 
who  sat  opposite  to  me  would  have  cried  if  he  had 
not  known  how  to  swear.  But  it  is  useless  to  recall 
the  anguish  of  that  night:  suffice  it  to,  say  that  for 
several  hours  the  only  air  we  got  was  an  occasional 
vocal  performance  from  the  above-mentioned  infant. 
At  midnight  we  reached  Palo,  on  the  sea  coast, 
where  I  heard  "the  wild  water  lapping  on  the  crag," 
and  felt  more  keenly  than  before  that  I  had  indeed 
left  Rome  behind  me.  The  remainder  of  the  jour- 
ney being  along  the  coast,  we  had  the  window  open, 
though  it  was  not  much  better  on  that  account,  as  we 
were  choking  with  dust.  It  was  small  comfort  to  see 
the  cuttings  and  fillings-in  for  the  railway  which  is 
destined  soon  to  destroy  those  beastly  diligences,  and 
place  Rome  within  two  or  three  hours  of  its  seaport. 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

At  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,  after  ten  toilsome 
hours,  I  found  myself,  tired,  dusty,  and  hungry,  in 
Civita  Vecchia,  a  city  which  has  probably  been  the 
cause  of  more  profanity  than  any  other  part  of  the 
world,  including  Flanders.  I  was  determined  not  to 
be  fleeced  by  any  of  the  hotel  keepers;  so  I  stag- 
gered about  the  streets  until  I  found  a  barber's  shop 
open.  Having  repaired  the  damage  of  the  preceding 
night,  I  hove  to  in  a  neighbouring  cafe  long  enough 
to  take  in  a  little  ballast  in  the  way  of  breakfast. 
Afterwards  I  fell  in  with  an  Englishman,  of  consid- 
erable literary  reputation,  whom  I  had  several  times 
met  in  Rome.  He  was  one  of  those  men  who  seem 
to  possess  all  sorts  of  sense  except  common  sense. 
He  was  full  of  details,  and  could  tell  exactly  the 
height  of  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's,  or  of  the  great 
pyramid, — could  explain  the  process  of  the  manu- 
facture of  the  Minie  rifle  or  the  boring  of  an  artesian 
well,  and  could  calculate  an  eclipse  with  Bond  or 
Secchi, — but  he  could  not  pack  a  carpet-bag  to  save 
his  life.  That  he  should  have  been  able  to  travel  so 
far  from  home  alone  is  a  fine  commentary  on  the 
honesty  and  good  nature  of  the  people  of  the  conti- 
nent. I  could  not  help  thinking  what  a  time  he  would 
have  were  he  to  attempt  to  travel  in  America.  He 
would  think  he  had  discovered  a  new  nomadic  tribe 
in  the  cabmen  of  New  York.  He  had  come  down  to 
Civita  Vecchia  in  a  most  promiscuous  style,  and 
when  I  discovered  him  he  was  trying  to  bring  about 
a  union  between  some  six  or  eight  irreconcilable 
pieces  of  luggage.  I  aided  him  successfully  in  the 
work,  and  his  look  of  perplexity  and  despair  gave 
way  to  one  of  gratitude  and  admiration  for  his  deliv- 

1901 


ROME  TO  MARSEILLES 

erer.  Delighted  at  this  escape  from  the  realities  of 
his  situation,  he  launched  out  into  a  profound  dis- 
sertation on  the  philosophy  of  language  and  the  for- 
mation of  provincial  dialects,  and  it  was  some  time 
before  I  could  bring  him  down  to  the  common  and 
practical  business  of  securing  his  passage  in  the 
steamer  for  Marseilles.  Ten  o'clock,  however, 
found  us  on  board  one  of  the  steamers  of  the  Mes- 
sageries  Imperiales,  and  we  were  very  shortly  after 
under  way.  We  were  so  unfortunate  as  to  run  aground 
on  a  little  spit  of  land  in  getting  out  of  port,  as  we 
ran  a  little  too  near  an  English  steamer  that  was 
lying  there.  But  a  Russian  frigate  sent  off  a  cable  to 
us,  and  thus  established  an  alliance  between  their  flag 
and  the  French,  which  drew  the  latter  out  of  the 
difficulty  in  which  it  had  got  by  too  close  a  proximity 
to  its  English  neighbour. 

It  was  a  beautiful,  cloudless  day,  and  reminded  me 
of  many  halcyon  days  I  had  spent  on  that  blue  Medi- 
terranean in  other  times.  It  reminded  me  of  some 
of  my  childhood's  days  in  the  country  in  New  Eng- 
land,— days  described  by  Emerson  where  he  says 
that  we  "bask  in  the  shining  hours  of  Florida  and 
Cuba," — when  "the  day,  immeasurably  long,  sleeps 
over  the  broad  hills  and  warm,  wide  fields," — when 
"the  cattle,  as  they  lie  on  the  ground,  seem  to  have 
great  and  tranquil  thoughts."  It  was  on  such  a  day 
that  I  used  to  delight  to  pore  over  my  Shakspeare, 
undisturbed  by  any  sound  save  the  hum  of  the  insect 
world,  or  the  impatient  switch  of  the  tail,  or  move- 
ment of  the  feet,  of  a  horse  who  had  sought  the  same 
shade  I  was  enjoying.  To  a  man  who  has  been 
rudely  used  by  fortune,  or  who  has  drunk  deep  ef 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

sorrow  or  disappointment,  I  can  conceive  of  nothing 
more  grateful  or  consoling  than  a  summer  cruise  in 
the  Mediterranean.  "The  sick  heart  often  needs  a 
warm  climate  as  much  as  the  sick  body." 

My  English  friend,  immediately  on  leaving  port, 
took  some  five  or  six  prescriptions  for  the  prevention 
of  seasickness,  and  then  went  to  bed,  so  that  I  had 
some  opportunity  to  look  about  among  our  ship's 
company.  There  were  two  men,  apparently  com- 
panions, though  they  hardly  spoke  to  each  other, 
who  amused  me  very  much.  One  was  a  person  of 
about  four  feet  and  a  half  in  height,  who  walked 
about  on  deck  with  that  manner  which  so  many  di- 
minutive persons  have,  of  wishing  to  be  thought  as 
tall  as  Mr.  George  Barrett.  He  boasted  a  deport- 
ment that  would  have  made  the  elder  Turveydrop 
envious,  while  it  was  evident  that  under  that  serene 
and  dignified  exterior  lay  hidden  all  the  warm-heart- 
edness and  geniality  of  that  eminent  philanthropist 
who  was  obliged  to  play  a  concerto  on  the  violin  to 
calm  his  grief  at  seeing  the  conflagration  of  his  na- 
tive city.  The  other  looked  as  if  "he  had  not  loved 
the  world,  nor  the  world  him"  ;  he  was  a  thin,  bilious- 
looking  person,  and  seemed  like  a  whole  serious 
family  rolled  into  one  individuality.  I  felt  a  great 
deal  of  curiosity  to  know  whether  he  was  reduced  to 
that  pitiable  condition  by  piety  or  indigestion.  I  felt 
sure  that  he  was  meditating  suicide  as  he  gazed  upon 
the  sea,  and  I  stood  by  him  for  some  time  to  prevent 
his  accomplishing  any  such  purpose,  until  I  became 
convinced  that  to  let  him  take  the  jump,  if  he  pleased, 
would  be  far  the  more  philanthropic  course  of  ac- 
tion. There  was  a  French  bishop,  and  a  colonel  of 


ROME  TO  MARSEILLES 

the  French  staff  at  Rome,  among  the  passengers,  and 
by  their  genial  urbanity  they  fairly  divided  between 
them  the  affections  of  the  whole  company.  Either  of 
them  would  have  made  a  fog  in  the  English  Channel 
seem  like  the  sunshine  of  the  Gulf  of  Egina.  I  picked 
up  a  pleasant  companion  in  an  Englishman  who  had 
travelled  much  and  read  more,  and  spent  the  greater 
part  of  the  day  with  him.  When  he  found  that  I  was 
an  American,  he  at  once  asked  me  if  I  had  ever  been 
to  Niagara,  and  had  ever  seen  Longfellow  and 
Emerson.  I  am  astonished  to  find  so  many  culti- 
vated English  people  who  know  little  or  nothing 
about  Tennyson;  I  am  inclined  to  think  he  has  ten 
readers  in  America  to  one  in  England,  while  the  Eng- 
lish can  repeat  Longfellow  by  pages. 

After  thirty  hours  of  pleasant  sailing  along  by 
Corsica  and  Elba,  and  along  the  coast  of  France, 
until  it  seemed  as  if  our  cruise  (like  that  of  the  widow 
of  whom  we  have  all  read)  would  never  have  an 
end,  we  came  to  anchor  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  fleet 
of  steamers  in  the  new  port  of  Marseilles.  The 
bustle  of  commercial  activity  seemed  any  thing  but 
pleasant  after  the  classical  repose  of  Rome;  but  the 
landlady  of  the  hotel  was  most  gracious,  and  when  I 
opened  the  window  of  my  room  looking  out  on  the 
Place  Royale,  one  of  those  peripatetic  dispensers  of 
melody,  whose  life  (like  the  late  M.  Mantalini's 
after  he  was  reduced  in  circumstances)  must  be  "one 
demnition  horrid  grind,"  executed  "Sweet  Home" 
in  a  manner  that  went  entirely  home  to  the  heart  of 
at  least  one  of  his  accidental  audience. 


MARSEILLES,   LYONS,  AND 
AIX  IN   SAVOY 

IF  the  people  of  Marseilles  do  not  love  the  Em- 
peror of  the  French,  they  ought  to  be  ashamed 
of  themselves.  He  has  so  completely  changed  the 
aspect  of  that  city  by  his  improvements,  that  the  man 
who  knows  it  as  it  existed  in  the  reign  of  Louis  Phi- 
lippe, would  be  lost  if  he  were  to  revisit  it  now.  The 
completion  of  the  railway  from  Paris  to  Marseilles 
is  an  inestimable  advantage  to  the  latter  city,  while 
the  new  port,  in  magnitude  and  style  of  execution,  is 
worthy  of  comparison  with  the  splendid  docks  of 
London  and  Liverpool.  The  flags  of  every  civilized 
nation  may  be  seen  there;  and  the  variety  of  cos- 
tumes and  languages,  which  bewilder  one's  eyes  and 
ears,  assure  him  that  he  is  in  the  commercial  metrop- 
olis of  the  Mediterranean.  The  frequency  of  steam 
communication  between  Marseilles  and  the  various 
ports  of  Spain,  Italy,  Africa,  and  the  Levant,  draws 
to  it  a  large  proportion  of  the  travellers  in  those 
directions.  I  believe  that  Marseilles  is  only  cele- 
brated for  having  been  colonized  by  the  Phocseans, 
or  some  such  people,  for  having  several  times  been 
devastated  by  the  plague,  and  for  having  been  very 
perfectly  described  by  Dickens  in  his  Little  Dorrit. 
The  day  on  which  I  arrived  there  was  very  like  the 
one  described  by  Dickens;  so  if  any  one  would  like 


MARSEILLES,  LYONS,  AND  AIX  IN  SAVOY 

further  particulars,  he  had  better  overhaul  his  Little 
Dorrit,  and,  "when  found,  make  note  of  it." 

The  day  after  my  arrival  I  saw  a  grand  religious 
procession  in  the  streets  of  the  city.  The  landlady 
of  my  hotel  had  told  me  of  it,  but  my  expectations 
were  not  raised  very  high,  for  I  thought  that  after 
the  grandeur  of  Rome,  all  other  things  in  that  way 
would  be  comparatively  tame.  But  I  was  mistaken; 
the  procession  fairly  rivalled  those  of  Rome.  There 
were  the  same  gorgeous  vestments,  the  same  pic- 
turesque groupings  of  black  robes  and  snowy  sur- 
plices, of  mitres  and  crosiers  and  shaven  crowns,  of 
scarlet  and  purple  and  cloth  of  gold,  the  same  swing- 
ing censers  and  clouds  of  fragrant  incense,  the  same 
swelling  flood  of  almost  supernatural  music.  The 
municipal  authorities  of  the  city,  with  the  staff  of  the 
garrison,  joined  in  the  procession,  and  the  military 
display  was  such  as  can  hardly  be  seen  out  of  France. 
I  have  often  been  struck  with  the  facility  with  which 
the  Catholic  religion  adapts  itself  to  the  character  of 
every  nation.  I  have  had  some  opportunity  of  obser- 
vation; I  have  seen  the  Catholic  Church  on  three  out 
of  the  four  continents,  and  have  every  where  noticed 
the  same  phenomenon.  Mahometanism  could  never 
be  transplanted  to  the  snowy  regions  of  Russia  or 
Norway;  it  needs  the  soft,  enervating  atmosphere  of 
Asia  to  keep  it  alive ;  the  veranda,  the  bubbling  foun- 
tain, the  noontide  repose,  are  all  parts  of  it.  Puri- 
tanism is  the  natural  growth  of  a  country  where  the 
sun  seldom  shines,  and  which  is  shut  out  by  a  barrier 
of  water  and  fog  from  kindly  intercourse  with  its 
neighbours.  It  could  never  thrive  in  the  bright 
south.  The  merry  vine-dressers  of  Italy  could  never 

1951 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

draw  down  their  faces  to  the  proper  length,  and 
would  be  very  unwilling  to  exchange  their  blithesome 
canzonetti  for  Sternhold  and  Hopkins's  version. 
But  the  Catholic  Church,  while  it  unites  its  profes- 
sors in  the  belief  of  the  same  inflexible  creed,  leaves 
them  entirely  free  in  all  mere  externals  and  national 
peculiarities.  When  I  see  the  light-hearted  French- 
man, the  fiery  Italian,  the  serious  Spaniard,  the  cun- 
ning Greek,  the  dignified  Armenian,  the  energetic 
Russian,  the  hard-headed  Dutchman,  the  philosoph- 
ical German,  the  formal  and  "respectable"  Eng- 
lishman, the  thrifty  Scotchman,  the  careless  and 
warm-hearted  Irishman,  and  the  calculating,  go- 
ahead  American,  all  bound  together  by  the  profes- 
sion of  the  same  faith,  and  yet  retaining  their 
national  characteristics,  — I  can  compare  it  to  nothing 
but  to  a  similar  phenomenon  that  we  may  notice  in 
the  prism,  which,  while  it  is  a  pure  and  perfect  crys- 
tal, is  found  on  examination  to  contain,  in  their  per- 
fection, all  the  various  colours  of  the  rainbow. 

The  terminus  of  the  Lyons  and  Mediterranean 
Railway  is  one  of  the  best  things  of  its  kind  in  the 
world.  I  wish  that  some  of  our  American  railway 
directors  could  take  a  few  lessons  from  the  French. 
The  attention  paid  to  securing  the  comfort  and 
safety  of  the  passengers  and  the  regularity  of  the 
trains  would  quite  bewilder  him.  Instead  of  finding 
the  station  a  long,  unfinished  kind  of  shed,  with  two 
small,  beastly  waiting  rooms  at  one  side,  and  a 
stand  for  a  vender  of  apples,  root  beer,  and  newspa- 
pers, he  would  see  a  fine  stone  structure,  several 
hundred  feet  in  length,  with  a  roof  of  iron  and  glass. 
He  would  enter  a  hall  which  would  remind  him  of 

£963 


MARSEILLES,  LYONS,  AND  AIX  IN  SAVOY 

the  Doric  hall  of  the  State  House  in  Boston,  only 
that  it  is  several  times  larger,  and  is  paved  with 
marble.  He  would  choose  out  of  the  three  ticket 
offices  of  the  three  classes,  where  he  would  ride,  and 
he  would  be  served  with  a  promptness  and  politeness 
that  would  remind  him  of  Mr.  Child  in  the  palmy 
days  of  the  old  Tremont  Theatre,  while  he  would 
notice  that  an  officer  stood  by  each  ticket  office  to  see 
that  every  purchaser  got  his  ticket  and  the  proper 
change,  and  to  give  all  necessary  information.  Hav- 
ing booked  his  luggage,  he  would  be  ushered  into  one 
of  the  three  waiting  rooms,  all  of  them  furnished 
in  a  style  of  neatness  and  elegance  that  would  greatly 
astonish  him.  He  might  employ  the  interval  in  the 
study  of  geography,  assisted  by  a  map  painted  on  one 
side  of  the  room,  giving  the  entire  south  of  France 
and  Piedmont,  with  the  railways,  &c.,  and  executed 
in  such  a  style  that  the  names  of  the  towns  are  legible 
at  a  distance  of  fifteen  or  twenty  feet.  Two  or  three 
minutes  before  the  hour  fixed  for  the  starting  of  the 
train,  the  door  would  be  opened,  and  he  would  take 
his  seat  in  the  train  with  the  other  passengers.  The 
whole  affair  would  go  on  so  systematically,  with  such 
an  absence  of  noise  and  excitement,  that  he  would 
doubt  whether  he  had  been  in  a  railway  station  at  all, 
until  he  found  himself  spinning  along  at  a  rapid  rate, 
through  long  tunnels,  and  past  the  beautiful  pano- 
rama of  Provencal  landscape. 

The  sun  was  as  bright  as  it  always  is  in  fair 
Provence,  the  sky  as  blue.  The  white  dusty  roads 
wound  around  over  the  green  landscape,  like  great 
serpents  seeking  to  hide  their  folds  amid  those  hills. 
The  almond,  the  lemon,  and  the  fig  attracted  the  at- 

1971 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

tcntlon  of  the  traveller  from  the  north,  before  all 
other  trees, — not  to  forget  however,  the  pale  foliage 
of  that  tree  which  used  to  furnish  wreaths  for  Mi- 
nerva's brow,  but  now  supplies  us  with  oil  for  our 
salads.  Aries,  with  its  old  amphitheatre  (a  broken 
shadow  of  the  Coliseum)  looming  up  above  it,  lay 
stifled  with  dust  and  broiling  in  the  sun,  as  we  hurried 
on  towards  Avignon.  It  does  not  take  much  time  to 
see  that  old  city,  which,  from  being  so  long  the  abode 
of  the  exiled  popes,  seems  to  have  caught  and  re- 
tained something  of  the  quiet  dignity  and  repose  of 
Rome  itself.  That  gloomy  old  palace  of  the  popes, 
with  its  lofty  turrets,  seems  to  brood  over  the  town, 
and  weigh  it  down  as  with  sorrow  for  its  departed 
greatness.  Centuries  have  passed,  America  has  been 
discovered,  the  whole  face  of  Europe  has  changed, 
since  a  pontiff  occupied  those  halls;  and  yet  there  it 
stands,  a  monument  commemorating  a  mere  episode 
in  the  history  of  the  see  of  St.  Peter. 

Arriving  at  Lyons,  I  found  another  palatial  sta- 
tion, on  even  a  grander  scale  than  that  of  Marseilles. 
The  architect  has  worked  the  coats  of  arms  of  the 
different  cities  of  France  into  the  stone  work  of  the 
exterior  in  a  very  effective  manner.  Lyons  bears 
witness,  no  less  than  Marseilles,  to  the  genius  of  the 
wonderful  man  who  now  governs  France.  It  is  a 
popular  notion  in  England  and  America,  that  the 
enterprise  of  Napoleon  III.  has  been  confined  to  the 
improvement  of  Paris.  If  persons  who  labour  under 
this  error  would  extend  their  journeyings  a  little  be- 
yond the  ordinary  track  of  a  summer  excursion,  they 
would  find  that  there  is  scarcely  a  town  in  the  empire 
that  has  not  felt  the  influence  of  his  skill  as  a  states- 


MARSEILLES,  LYONS,  AND  AIX  IN  SAVOY 

man  and  political  economist.  The  Rue  Imperiale  of 
Lyons  is  a  monument  of  which  any  sovereign  might 
be  justly  proud.  The  activity  of  Lyons,  the  new 
buildings  rising  on  every  side,  and  its  look  of  pros- 
perity, would  lead  one  to  suppose  that  it  was  some 
place  that  had  just  been  settled,  instead  of  a  city 
with  twenty  centuries  of  history.  The  Sunday,  I  was 
glad  to  see,  was  well  observed;  perhaps  not  exactly 
in  the  style  which  Aminadab  Sleek  would  commend, 
but  in  a  very  rational,  Christian,  un-Jewish  manner. 
The  shops  were,  for  the  most  part,  closed,  the 
churches  were  crowded  with  people,  and  in  the  after- 
noon and  evening  the  entire  population  was  abroad 
enjoying  itself — and  a  cleaner,  better-behaved,  hap- 
pier-looking set  of  people  I  never  saw.  The  exces- 
sive heat  still  continues.  It  is  now  more  than  two 
months  since  I  opened  my  umbrella ;  the  prospects  of 
the  harvest  are  good,  but  they  are  praying  hard  in 
the  churches  for  a  little  rain.  During  my  stay  at 
Lyons,  I  lived  almost  entirely  on  fresh  figs,  and 
plums  and  ices.  How  full  the  cafes  were  those  sultry 
evenings !  How  busy  must  the  freezers  have  been 
in  the  cellars  below  I  I  read  through  all  the  newspa- 
pers I  could  lay  my  hands  on,  and  then  amused 
myself  with  watching  the  gay,  chattering  throng 
around  me.  How  my  mind  flew  across  the  ocean 
that  evening  to  a  quiet  back  parlour  at  the  South 
End!  I  could  see  the  venerable  Baron  receiving  a 
guest  on  such  a  night  as  that,  and  making  the  weather 
seem  cool  by  contrast  with  the  warmth  of  his  hos- 
pitality. I  could  see  him  offering  to  his  perspiring 
visitor  a  release  from  the  slavery  of  broadcloth,  in 
the  loan  of  a  nankeen  jacket,  and  then  busying  him- 

C993 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

self  in  the  preparation  of  a  compound  of  old  Co- 
chituate,  (I  had  almost  said  old  Jamaica,)  of  ice,  of 
sugar,  yea,  of  lemons,  and  commending  the  grateful 
chalice  to  the  parched  lips  of  his  guest.  Such  an 
evening  in  the  Baron's  back  parlour  is  the  very 
ecstasy  of  hospitality.  It  is  many  months  since  that 
old  nankeen  jacket  folded  me  in  its  all-embracing 
arms,  but  the  very  thought  of  it  awakes  a  thrill  of 
pleasure  in  my  heart.  When  I  last  saw  it,  "decay's 
effacing  fingers"  had  meddled  with  the  buttons 
thereof,  and  it  was  growing  a  trifle  consumptive  in 
the  vicinity  of  the  elbows;  but  I  hope  that  it  is  good 
for  many  a  year  of  usefulness  yet,  before  the  epitaph 
writer  shall  commence  the  recital  of  its  merits  with 
those  melancholy  words,  Hie  jacetf  Pardon  me, 
dear  reader,  for  this  digression  from  the  recital  of 
my  wanderings;  but  this  jacket,  the  remembrance  of 
which  is  so  dear  to  me,  is  not  the  trifle  it  may  seem 
to  you.  It  is,  I  believe,  the  only  institution  in  the 
world  of  the  same  age  and  importance,  which  has 
not  been  apostrophized  in  verse  by  that  gifted  bard, 
Mr.  Martin  Farquhar  Tupper.  If  this  be  not  celeb- 
rity, what  is  it  ? 

In  one  of  the  narrow  streets  of  Lyons  I  found  a 
barber  named  Melnotte.  He  was  a  man  somewhat 
advanced  in  life,  and  I  feel  sure  that  he  addressed  a 
good-looking  woman  in  a  snowy  white  cap,  who 
looked  in  from  a  back  room  while  I  was  having  my 
hair  cut,  as  Pauline.  Be  that  as  it  may,  when  he  had 
finished  his  work,  and  I  walked  up  to  the  mirror  to 
inspect  it,  he  addressed  to  me  the  language  of  Bul- 
wer's  hero,  "Do  you  like  the  picture?"  or  words  to 
that  effect.  I  cannot  help  mistrusting  that  Sir  Ed- 


MARSEILLES,  LYONS,  AND  AIX  IN  SAVOY 

ward  may  have  misled  us  concerning  the  ultimate 
history  of  the  Lady  of  Lyons  and  her  husband.  But 
the  heat  was  too  intolerable  for  human  endurance; 
so  I  packed  up,  and  leaving  that  fair  city,  with  its 
numerous  graceful  bridges,  and  busy  looms  whose 
fabrics  brighten  the  eyes  of  the  beauties  of  Europe 
and  America,  and  lighten  the  purses  of  their  chiv- 
alry,— leaving  Our  Lady  of  Fourvieres  looking 
down  with  outstretched  hands  from  the  dome  of  her 
lofty  shrine,  and  watching  over  her  faithful  Lyon- 
nese,— I  turned  my  face  towards  the  Alpine  regions. 
The  Alps  have  always  been  to  me  what  Australia 
was  to  the  late  Mr.  Micawber — "the  bright  dream 
of  my  youth,  and  the  fallacious  aspiration  of  my 
riper  years."  I  remember  when  I  was  young,  long 
before  the  days  of  railways  and  steamers,  in  the 
times  when  a  man  who  had  travelled  in  Europe  was 
invested  with  a  sort  of  awful  dignity — I  remember 
hearing  a  travelled  uncle  of  mine  tell  about  the  Alps, 
and  I  resolved,  with  all  the  enthusiasm  of  boyhood, 
thenceforward  to  "save  up"  all  my  Fourth  of  July 
and  Artillery  Election  money,  until  I  should  be  able 
to  go  and  see  one.  When  the  Rev.  James  Sheridan 
Knowles  (he  was  a  wicked  playactor  in  those  days) 
produced  his  drama  of  William  Tell,  how  it  fed  the 
flame  of  my  ambition  I  How  I  longed  to  stand  with 
the  hero  once  again  among  his  native  hills !  How  I 
loved  the  glaciers !  How  I  doted  on  the  avalanches ! 
But  age  has  cooled  the  longings  of  my  heart  for 
mountain  excursions,  and  robbed  my  legs  of  all  their 
climbing  powers,  so  that  if  it  depends  upon  my  own 
bodily  exertions,  the  Vale  of  Chamouni  will  be  en- 
tirely unavailable  for  me,  and  every  mount  will  be  to 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

me  a  blank.  The  scenery  along  the  line  of  railway 
from  Amberieu  to  Culoz  on  the  Rhone  is  very  grand. 
The  ride  reminded  me  of  the  ride  over  the  Atlantic 
and  St.  Lawrence  road  through  the  White  Moun- 
tains, only  it  is  finer.  The  boldness  of  the  cliffs  and 
precipices  was  something  to  make  one's  heart  beat 
quick,  and  cause  him  to  wonder  how  the  peasants 
could  work  so  industriously,  and  the  cattle  feed  so 
constantly,  without  stopping  to  look  up  at  the  mag- 
nificence that  hemmed  them  in. 

At  Culoz  I  went  on  board  one  of  those  peculiar 
steamers  of  the  Rhone — about  one  hundred  and 
fifty  feet  in  length  by  ten  or  twelve  in  width.  Our 
way  lay  through  a  narrow  and  circuitous  branch  of 
the  river  for  several  miles.  The  windings  of  the 
river  were  such  that  men  were  obliged  to  turn  the 
boat  about  by  means  of  cables,  which  they  made  fast 
to  posts  fixed  in  the  banks  on  either  side  for  that  pur- 
pose. The  scenery  along  the  banks  was  like  a  dream 
of  Paradise.  To  say  that  the  country  was  smiling 
with  flowers  and  verdure  does  not  express  it — it  was 
bursting  into  a  broad  grin  of  fertility.  Such  vine- 
yards !  Not  like  the  grape  vine  in  your  back  yard, 
dear  reader,  nailed  up  against  a  brick  wall,  but  large, 
luxuriant  vines,  seeming  at  a  loss  what  to  do  with 
themselves,  and  festooned  from  tree  to  tree,  just  as 
you  see  them  in  the  scenery  of  Fra  Diavolo.  And 
then  there  were  groups  of  people  in  costumes  of  pic- 
turesque negligence,  and  women  in  large  straw  hats, 
and  dresses  of  brilliant  colours,  just  like  the  chorus 
of  an  opera.  The  deep,  rich  hue  of  the  foliage  par- 
ticularly attracted  my  notice.  It  was  as  different 
from  the  foliage  of  New  England  as  Winship's  Gar- 

£1023 


MARSEILLES,  LYONS,  AND  AIX  IN  SAVOY 

dens  are  from  an  invoice  of  palm-leaf  hats.  Beyond 
the  immediate  vicinity  of  the  river  rose  up  beautiful 
hills  and  cliffs  like  the  Palisades  of  the  Hudson.  Let 
those  who  will,  prefer  the  wild  grandeur  of  our 
American  mountain  scenery;  there  is  a  great  charm 
for  me  in  the  union  of  nature  and  art.  The  careful 
cultivation  of  the  fields  seems  to  set  off  and  render 
more  grand  and  austere  the  gray,  jagged  cliffs  that 
overlook  them.  As  the  elder  Pliny  most  justly  re- 
marks, (lib.  iv.  cap.  xi.  24,)  "It  requires  the  lemon 
as  well  as  the  sugar  to  make  the  punch." 

After  about  an  hour's  sail  upon  the  river,  we  came 
out  upon  the  beautiful  Lake  of  Bourget.  It  was 
stirred  by  a  gentle  breeze,  but  it  seemed  as  if  its 
bright  blue  surface  had  never  reflected  a  cloud.  All 
around  its  borders  the  trees  and  vines  seemed  bend- 
ing down  to  drink  of  its  pure  waters.  Far  off  in  the 
distance  rose  up  the  mighty  peaks  of  the  Alps — their 
snow-white  tops  contrasting  with  the  verdure  of  their 
sides.  They  seemed  to  be  watching  with  pleasure 
over  the  glad  scenes  beneath  them,  like  old  men 
whose  gray  hairs  have  been  powerless  to  disturb  the 
youthful  freshness  and  geniality  of  their  hearts. 

At  St.  Innocent  I  landed,  and  underwent  the  cus- 
tom house  formalities  attendant  upon  entrance  into 
a  new  territory.  The  officials  were  very  expeditious, 
and  equally  polite.  I  at  first  supposed  that  the  letters 
V.  E.,  which  each  of  them  bore  conspicuously  on  his 
cap,  meant  "very  empty" — but  it  afterwards  oc- 
curred to  me  that  they  were  the  initials  of  his  maj- 
esty, the  King  of  Sardinia.  A  few  minutes'  ride  over 
the  "Victor  Emmanuel  Railway"  brought  me  to  the 
beautiful  village  of  Aix.  It  is  situated,  as  my  friend 

[1033 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

the  Lyonnese  barber  would  say,  in  "a  deep  vale  shut 
out  by  Alpine  hills  from  the  rude  world."  It  pos- 
sesses about  2500  inhabitants;  but  that  number  is 
considerably  augmented  at  present,  for  the  mineral 
springs  of  Aix  are  very  celebrated,  and  this  is  the 
height  of  "the  season."  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
what  is  called  "society"  here,  and  during  the  morn- 
ing the  baths  are  crowded.  It  is  as  dull  as  all  water- 
ing places  necessarily  are,  and  twice  as  hot.  I  think 
that  the  French  manage  these  things  better  than  we 
do  in  America.  There  is  less  humbug,  less  display  of 
jewelry  and  dress,  and  a  vast  deal  more  of  common 
sense  and  solid  comfort  than  with  us.  The  cafes  are 
like  similar  establishments  in  all  such  places— an 
abundance  of  ices  and  ordinary  coffee,  and  a  plentiful 
lack  of  newspapers.  I  have  found  a  companion, 
however,  who  more  than  makes  good  the  latter  defi- 
ciency. He  is  an  Englishman  of  some  seventy  years, 
who  is  here  bathing  for  his  gout.  His  light  hair  and 
fresh  complexion  disguise  his  age  so  completely  that 
most  people,  when  they  see  us  together,  judge  me, 
from  my  gray  locks,  to  be  the  elder.  He  is  one  of  the 
most  entertaining  persons  I  have  ever  met— he  knows 
the  classics  by  heart, — is  familiar  with  English, 
French,  Italian,  German,  and  Spanish  literature, — 
speaks  nine  languages,  — and  has  travelled  all  over 
the  world.  He  is  as  familiar  with  the  Steppes  of 
Tartary  as  with  Wapping  Old  Stairs,— has  imbibed 
sherbet  in  Damascus  and  sherry  cobblers  in  New 
York,  and  seen  a  lion  hunt  in  South  Africa.  But  his 
heart  is  the  heart  of  a  boy— "age  cannot  wither  nor 
custom  stale"  its  infinite  geniality.  He  cannot  pass 
by  a  beggar  without  making  an  investment  for  eter- 


MARSEILLES,  LYONS,  AND  AIX  IN  SAVOY 

nity,  and  all  the  babies  look  over  the  shoulders  of 
their  nurses  to  smile  at  him  as  he  walks  the  streets. 
I  mention  him  here  for  the  sake  of  recording  one  of 
his  opinions,  which  struck  me  by  its  truth  and  orig- 
inality. We  were  sitting  in  a  cafe  last  evening,  and, 
after  a  long  conversation,  I  asked  him  what  he 
should  give  as  the  result  of  all  his  reading  and  ob- 
servation of  men  and  things,  and  all  his  experience, 
if  he  were  to  sum  it  up  in  one  sentence.  "Sir,"  said 
he,  removing  his  meerschaum  from  his  mouth,  and 
turning  towards  me  as  if  to  give  additional  force  to 
his  reply,  "it  may  all  be  comprised  in  this:  the  world 
is  composed  of  two  classes  of  men— natural  fools 
and  d — d  fools;  the  first  class  are  those  who  have 
never  made  any  pretensions,  or  have  reached  a  just 
appreciation  of  the  nothingness  of  all  human  acquire- 
ments and  hopes;  the  second  are  those  whose  belief 
in  their  own  infallibility  has  never  been  disturbed; 
and  this  class  includes  a  vast  number  of  every  rank, 
from  the  profound  German  philosopher,  who  thinks 
that  he  has  fathomed  infinity,  down  to  that  young 
fop  twirling  his  moustache  at  the  opposite  table,  and 
flattering  himself  that  he  is  making  a  great  impres- 
sion." 

Savoy,  as  every  body  knows,  was  once  a  part  of 
France,  and  it  still  retains  all  of  its  original  charac- 
teristics. I  have  not  heard  ten  words  of  Italian  since 
I  arrived  here,  and,  judging  from  what  I  do  hear  and 
from  the  tone  of  the  newspapers,  it  would  like  to 
become  a  part  of  France  again.  The  Savoyards  are 
a  religious,  steady-going  people,  and  they  have  little 
love  either  for  the  weak  and  dissolute  monarch  who 
governs  them,  or  for  the  powerful,  infidel  prime 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

ister  who  governs  their  monarch.  The  high-pitched 
roofs  of  the  houses  here  are  suggestive  of  the  snows 
of  winter;  but  the  heat  reminds  me  of  the  coast  of 
Africa  during  a  sirocco.  How  true  is  Sydney 
Smith's  remark,  "Man  only  lives  to  shiver  or  per- 
spire" !  The  thermometer  ranges  any  where  from 
80°  to  90°.  Can  this  be  the  legitimate  temperature 
of  these  mountainous  regions?  I  am  "ill  at  these 
numbers,"  and  nothing  would  be  so  invigorating  to 
my  infirm  and  shaky  frame  as  a  sniff  of  the  salt 
breezes  of  Long  Branch  or  Nantasket. 


AIX  TO   PARIS 

THERE  is  no  need  of  telling  how  disgusted  1 
became  with  Aix-les-Bains  and  all  that  in  it  is, 
after  a  short  residence  there.  How  I  hated  those 
straw-hatted  people  who  beset  the  baths  from  the 
earliest  flush  of  the  aurora !  How  I  detested  those 
fellows  who  were  constantly  pestering  me  with  offers 
(highly  advantageous,  without  doubt)  of  donkeys 
whereon  to  ride,  when  they  knew  that  I  did  n't  want 
one!  How  I  abominated  the  sight  of  a  man  (who 
seemed  to  haunt  me)  in  a  high  velvet-collared  coat 
and  a  bell-crowned  hat  just  overtopping  an  oily-look- 
ing head  of  hair  and  bushy  whiskers — who  looked, 
for  all  the  world,  as  if  he  were  made  up  for  Sir  Har- 
court  Courtly!  How  maliciously  he  held  on  to  the 
newspapers  in  the  cafe!  How  constantly  he  sat 
there  and  devoured  all  the  news  out  of  them  through 
the  medium  of  a  double  tortoise-shell  eye-glass, 
which  always  seemed  to  be  just  falling  off  his  nose ! 
How  I  abhorred  the  sight  of  those  waiters,  who 
looked  as  if  the  season  were  a  short  one,  and  time 
(as  B.  Franklin  said)  was  money !  How  stifling  was 
the  atmosphere  of  that  "seven-by-nine"  room  for 
which  I  had  to  pay  so  dearly!  How  hot,  how  dusty, 
how  dull  it  was,  I  need  not  weary  you  by  telling; 
suffice  it  to  say,  that  I  never  packed  my  trunk  more 
willingly  than  when  I  left  that  village.  I  am  very 
glad  to  have  been  there,  however,  for  the  satisfac- 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

tion  I  felt  at  leaving  the  place  is  worth  almost  any 
effort  to  obtain.  The  joy  of  departure  made  even 
the  exorbitant  bills  seem  reasonable;  and  when  I 
thought  of  the  stupidity  and  discomfort  I  was  escap- 
ing from,  I  felt  as  if,  come  what  might,  my  future 
could  only  be  one  of  sunshine  and  content.  Aix-les- 
Bains  is  one  of  the  pleasantest  places  to  leave  that  I 
have  ever  seen.  I  can  never  forget  the  measureless 
happiness  of  seeing  my  luggage  ticketed  for  Paris, 
and  then  taking  my  seat  with  the  consciousness  that 
I  was  leaving  Aix  (not  aches,  alas!)  behind  me. 

The  Lake  of  Bourget  was  as  beautiful  and  smiling 
as  before — only  it  did  seem  as  if  the  sun  might  have 
held  in  a  little.  He  scorched  and  blistered  the  pas- 
sengers on  that  steamboat  in  the  most  absurd  man- 
ner. He  seemed  never  to  have  heard  of  Horace, 
and  was  consequently  entirely  ignorant  of  the  pro- 
priety of  maintaining  a  modus  in  his  rebuses.  The 
scenery  along  the  banks  of  the  Rhone  had  not 
changed  in  the  least,  but  was  as  romantic  and  the- 
atrical as  ever.  At  Culoz  I  was  glad  to  get  on  shore, 
for  like  Hamlet,  I  had  been  "too  much  i'  the  sun" ; 
so  I  left  the  "blue  rushing  of  the  arrowy  Rhone," 
(which  the  late  Lord  Byron,  with  his  usual  disregard 
of  truth,  talks  about,  and  which  is  as  muddy  as  a 
Medford  brick-yard,)  and  took  refuge  in  the  hos- 
pitality of  a  custom  house.  Here  I  fell  into  a  medi- 
tation upon  custom  house  officers.  I  wonder  whether 
the  custom  house  officers  of  France  are  in  their 
leisure  hours  given  to  any  of  the  vanities  which  de- 
light their  American  brethren.  There  was  one  lean, 
thoughtful-looking  man  among  those  at  Culoz  who 
attracted  my  attention.  I  tried  ineffectually  to  make 


AIX  TO  PARIS 

out  his  bent  from  his  physiognomy.  I  could  not 
imagine  him  occupying  his  leisure  by  putting  any 
twice-told  tales  on  paper— or  cultivating  Shanghai 
poultry— or  riding  on  to  the  tented  field  amid  the 
roar  of  artillery  at  the  head  of  a  brigade  of  militia, 
—  and  I  was  obliged,  in  the  hurry  of  the  examination 
of  luggage,  to  give  him  up. 

I  had  several  times,  during  the  journey  from  Aix, 
noticed  a  tall,  eagle-eyed  man,  in  a  suit  of  gray,  and 
wearing  a  moustache  of  the  same  colour,  and  while 
we  were  waiting  for  the  train  at  Culoz,  I  observed 
that  he  attracted  a  great  deal  of  attention:  his  bear- 
ing was  so  commanding,  that  I  had  set  him  down  as 
being  connected  with  the  military  interest,  before  I 
noticed  that  he  did  not  bear  arms,  for  the  left  sleeve 
of  his  coat  hung  empty  and  useless  by  his  side ;  so  I 
ventured  to  inquire  concerning  him,  and  learned  that 
I  was  a  fellow-traveller  of  Marshal  Baraguay  d'Hil- 
liers.  I  must  do  him  the  justice  to  say  that  he  did  not 
look  like  a  man  who  would  leave  his  arms  on  the 
field. 

We  were  soon  whirling,  and  puffing,  and  whistling 
along  through  the  tame  but  pleasing  landscape  of 
France.  Those  carefully-tilled  fields,  those  vine- 
yards almost  overflowing  with  the  raw  material  of 
conviviality,  those  interminable  rows  of  tall  trees 
which  seem  to  give  no  shade,  those  farm-houses, 
whose  walls  we  should  in  America  consider  strong 
enough  for  fortifications,  those  contented-looking 
cattle,  those  towns  that  seem  to  consist  of  a  single 
street  and  an  old  gray  tower,  with  a  dark-coloured 
conical  top,  like  a  candle  extinguisher,  —  all  had  a 
good,  familiar  look  to  me;  and  the  numerous  fields 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

of  Indian  corn  almost  made  me  think  that  I  was  on 
my  way  to  Worcester  or  Fitchburg.  I  stopped  for  a 
while  at  Macon,  (a  town  which  I  respect  for  its  con- 
tributions to  the  good  cheer  of  the  world,)  and 
hugely  enjoyed  a  walk  through  its  clean,  quiet  streets. 
While  I  was  waiting  at  the  station,  the  express  train 
from  Paris  came  along;  and  many  of  the  passengers 
left  their  places  (like  Mr.  Squeers)  to  stretch  their 
legs.  Among  them  was  a  man  whose  acquisitive  eye, 
black  satin  waistcoat,  fashionable  hat,  (such  as  no 
man  but  an  American  would  think  of  travelling  in,) 
and  coat  with  the  waist  around  his  hips,  and  six  or 
eight  inches  of  skirt,  immediately  fixed  my  attention. 
Before  I  thought,  he  had  asked  me  if  I  could  speak 
English.  I  set  him  at  his  ease  by  answering  that  I 
took  lessons  in  it  once  when  I  was  young,  and  he 
immediately  launched  out  as  follows:  "Well,  this  is 
the  cussedest  language  I  ever  did  hear.  I  don't  see 
how  in  the  devil  these  blasted  fools  can  have  lived  so 
long  right  alongside  of  England  without  trying  to 
learn  the  English  language."  The  whistle  of  the 
engine  cut  short  the  declaration  of  his  sentiments, 
and  he  was  whizzing  on  towards  Lyons  a  moment 
after.  Whoever  that  man  may  have  been,  he  owes  it 
to  himself  and  his  country  to  write  a  book.  His 
work  would  be  as  worthy  of  consideration  as  the 
writings  of  two  thirds  of  our  English  and  American 
travellers,  who  think  they  are  qualified  to  write  about 
the  government  and  social  condition  of  a  country 
because  they  have  travelled  through  it.  Fancy  a 
Frenchman,  entirely  ignorant  of  the  English  tongue, 
landing  at  Boston,  and  stopping  at  the  Tremont 
House  or  Parker's;  he  visits  the  State  House,  the 


AIX  TO  PARIS 

Athenaeum,  Bunker  Hill,  the  wharves,  &c.  Then  on 
Sunday  he  wishes  to  know  something  about  the  re- 
ligion of  these  strange  people;  so  he  goes  across  the 
street  to  the  King's  Chapel,  and  finds  that  it  is 
closed;  so  he  walks  down  the  street  in  the  burning 
sun  to  Brattle  Street,  where  he  hears  a  comfortable, 
drony  kind  of  sermon,  which  seems  to  have  as  com- 
posing an  effect  upon  the  fifty  or  a  hundred  persons 
who  are  present  as  upon  himself.  In  the  afternoon 
he  finds  his  way  to  Trinity  Church,  (somebody  hav- 
ing charitably  told  him  that  that  is  the  most  genteel 
place,)  and  there  he  hears  "our  admirable  liturgy" 
sonorously  read  out  to  twenty  or  thirty  people,  all  of 
whom  are  so  engrossed  in  their  devotions  that  the 
responses  are  entirely  neglected.  Having  had 
enough  of  what  the  Irishman  called  the  English  leth- 
argy, he  returns  to  his  lodgings,  and  writes  in  his 
note-book  that  the  Americans  seldom  go  to  church, 
and  when  they  do,  go  there  to  sleep  in  comfortable 
pews.  Then  he  makes  a  little  tour  of  a  fortnight  to 
New  Haven,  Providence,  Springfield,  &c.,  and  re- 
turns to  France  to  write  a  book  of  travels  in  New 
England.  And  what  are  all  his  observations  worth? 
I'll  tell  you.  They  are  worth  just  as  much,  and  give 
exactly  as  faithful  a  representation  of  the  state  of 
society  in  New  England,  as  four  fifths  of  the  books 
written  by  English  and  American  travellers  in 
France,  Spain,  and  Italy,  do  of  the  condition  of 
those  countries. 

I  have  encountered  many  interesting  studies  of 
humanity  here  on  the  continent  in  my  day.  I  have 
met  many  people  who  have  come  abroad  with  a 
vague  conviction  that  travel  improves  one,  and  who 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

do  not  see  that  to  visit  Europe  without  some  prepa- 
ration is  like  going  a-fishing  without  line  or  bait. 
They  appear  to  think  that  some  great  benefit  is  to  be 
obtained  by  passing  over  a  certain  space  of  land  and 
water,  and  being  imposed  upon  to  an  unlimited  ex- 
tent by  a  horde  of  commissionnaires,  ciceroni,  couri- 
ers, and  others,  who  find  in  their  ignorance  and  lack 
of  common  sense  a  source  of  wealth.  I  met,  the 
other  day,  a  gentleman  from  one  of  the  Western 
States,  who  said  that  he  was  "putting  up"  at 
Meurice's  Hotel,  but  didn't  think  much  of  it;  if  it 
had  not  been  for  some  English  people  whom  he  fell 
in  with  on  the  way  from  Calais,  he  should  have  gone 
to  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  which  he  supposed,  from  the 
pictures  he  had  seen,  must  be  a  "fust  class  house"  !  I 
have  within  a  few  hours  seen  an  American,  who  could 
not  ask  the  simplest  question  in  French,  but  thinks 
that  he  shall  stop  three  or  four  weeks,  and  learn  the 
language!  I  have  repeatedly  met  people  who  told 
me  that  they  had  come  out  to  Europe  "jest  to  see  the 
place."  But  it  is  not  alone  such  ignoramuses  as  these 
who  merit  the  pity  or  contempt  of  the  judicious  and 
sensible.  Their  folly  injures  no  one  but  themselves. 
The  same  cannot  be  said,  however,  of  the  authors  of 
the  numerous  duodecimos  of  foreign  travel  which 
burden  the  booksellers'  counters.  They  have  sup- 
posed that  they  can  sketch  a  nation's  character  by 
looking  at  its  towns  from  the  windows  of  an  express 
train.  They  presume  to  write  about  the  social  life 
of  France  or  Italy,  while  they  are  ignorant  of  any 
language  but  their  own,  and  do  not  know  a  single 
French  or  Italian  family.  Victims  of  a  bitter  preju- 
dice against  those  countries  and  their  institutions, 


AIX  TO  PARIS 

they  are  prepared  beforehand  to  be  shocked  and  dis- 
gusted at  all  they  see.  Like  Sterne's  Smelfungus, 
they  "set  out  with  the  spleen  and  jaundice,  and  every 
object  they  pass  by  is  discoloured  or  distorted." 
Kenelm  Digby  wisely  remarks  that  one  of  the  great 
advantages  of  journeying  beyond  sea,  to  a  man  of 
sense  and  feeling,  is  the  spectacle  of  general  travel- 
lers: "it  will  prevent  his  being  ever  again  imposed 
upon  by  these  birds  of  passage,  when  they  record 
their  adventures  and  experience  on  returning  to  the 
north." 

Dijon  is  a  fine  old  city.  Every  body  knows  that 
it  used  to  be  the  capital  of  Burgundy,  but  to  the  gen- 
eral reader  it  is  more  particularly  interesting  as  being 
the  place  to  which  Mrs.  Dombey  and  Mr.  Carker 
fled  after  the  elopement.  There  is  a  fine  cathedral 
and  public  library,  and  the  whole  place  has  an  emi- 
nently Burgundian  flavour  which  makes  one  regret 
that  he  got  tired  so  soon  when  he  tried  to  read  Frois- 
sart's  Chronicles.  There  is  a  church  there  which 
was  desecrated  during  the  old  revolution,  and  is  now 
used  as  a  market-house.  It  bears  an  inscription 
which  presents  a  satirical  commentary  on  its  recent 
history:  "Domine,  dilexi  decor  em  domus  tu<e!"  The 
Dijon  gingerbread  (which  the  people,  in  their  ig- 
norance and  lack  of  our  common  school  advantages, 
call  pain  d'epice)  would  really  merit  a  diploma  from 
that  academy  of  connoisseurs,  the  Massachusetts 
House  of  Representatives.  But  Dombey  and  Dijon 
are  all  forgotten  in  our  first  glimpse  of  the  "gay 
capital  of  bewildering  France."  There  lay  Paris, 
sparkling  under  the  noonday  sun.  The  sight  of  its 
domes  and  monuments  awoke  all  my  fellow-travel- 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

lers:  shabby  caps  and  handkerchiefs  were  exchanged 
for  hats  and  bonnets,  which  gave  their  wearers  an 
air  of  respectability  perfectly  uncalled  for.  We  were 
soon  inside  the  fortifications,  which  have  been  so 
outgrown  by  the  city  that  one  hardly  notices  them; 
and,  after  the  usual  luggage  examination,  I  found 
myself  in  an  omnibus,  and  once  more  on  the  Boule- 
vards. 

And  what  a  good,  comfortable  home-feeling  it 
was  1  There  were  the  old,  familiar  streets,  the  well- 
known  advertisements,  painted  conspicuously,  in 
blue,  and  green,  and  gold,  on  what  would  else  have 
been  a  blank,  unsightly  wall,  and  inviting  me  to  pur- 
chase cloths  and  cashmeres;  there  were  the  same 
ceaseless  tides  of  life  ebbing  and  flowing  through 
those  vast  thoroughfares,  the  same  glossy  beavers, 
the  same  snowy  caps  and  aprons,  the  same  blouses, 
the  same  polite,  s'il  vous-platt,  pardon,  m'sieur,  take- 
it-easy  air,  that  Paris,  as  seen  from  an  omnibus  win- 
dow, always  presents.  We  rolled  through  the  Rue 
St.  Antoine,  and  it  was  hard  to  realize  that  it  had 
ever  been  the  theatre  of  so  much  appalling  history. 
I  tried  to  imagine  the  barricades,  the  street  ploughed 
up  by  artillery,  and  that  heroic  martyr,  Archbishop 
Affre,  falling  there,  and  praying  that  his  blood  might 
be  the  last  shed  in  that  fratricidal  strife;  but  it  was 
useless;  the  lively  present  made  the  past  seem  but 
the  mere  invention  of  the  historian.  All  traces  of 
the  frightful  scenes  of  1848  have  been  effaced,  and 
the  facilities  for  barricades  have  been  disposed  of  in 
a  way  that  must  make  red  republicanism  very  disre- 
spectful to  the  memory  of  MacAdam.  As  we  passed 
a  church  in  that  bloody  locality,  a  wedding  party 


AIX  TO  PARIS 

came  out;  the  bridegroom  looked  as  if  he  had  taken 
chloroform  to  enable  him  to  get  through  his  difficul- 
ties, and  the  effect  of  it  had  not  entirely  passed  off. 
The  bride  (for  women,  you  know,  have  greater 
power  of  endurance  than  men)  seemed  to  take  it 
more  easily,  and,  beaming  in  the  midst  of  a  sort  of 
wilderness  of  lace,  and  gauze,  and  muslin,  like  a 
lighthouse  in  a  fog,  she  tripped  briskly  into  the  car- 
riage, with  a  bouquet  in  her  hand,  and  happiness  in 
her  heart.  Before  the  bridal  party  got  fairly  out  of 
sight,  a  funeral  came  along.  The  white  pall  showed 
that  it  was  a  child  who  slept  upon  the  bier;  for  the 
Catholic  church  does  not  mourn  over  those  who  are 
removed  from  the  temptations  of  life  before  they 
have  known  them.  The  vehicles  all  gave  way  to  let 
the  little  procession  pass,  the  hum  seemed  to  cease 
for  a  moment,  every  head  was  uncovered,  even  the 
porter  held  his  burden  on  his  shoulder  with  one  hand 
that  he  might  pay  his  respects  to  that  sovereign  to 
whom  even  republicans  are  obliged  to  bow,  and  the 
many-coloured  hats  of  the  omnibus  drivers  were 
doffed.  I  had  often  before  noticed  those  striking 
contrasts  that  one  sees  in  a  capital  like  Paris;  but  to 
meet  such  a  one  at  my  very  entrance  impressed  me 
deeply.  Such  is  Paris.  You  think  it  the  liveliest 
place  in  the  world,  (and  so  it  is;)  but  suddenly  you 
come  upon  something  that  makes  you  thoughtful,  if 
it  does  not  sadden  you.  Life  and  death  elbow  and 
jostle  each  other  along  these  gay  streets,  until  it 
seems  as  if  they  were  rivals  striving  to  drive  each 
other  out.  I  entered  a  church  a  day  or  two  since. 
There  was  a  funeral  at  the  high  altar.  The  black 
vestments  and  hangings,  the  lighted  tapers,  the  sol- 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

emn  chant  of  the  De  profundis  were  eloquent  of 
death  and  what  must  follow  it.  I  was  startled  by 
hearing  a  child's  cry,  and  looking  round  into  the 
chapel  which  served  as  a  baptistery,  there  stood  two 
young  mothers  who  had  just  received  their  infants 
from  that  purifying  laver  which  made  them  members 
of  the  great  Christian  family.  I  never  before  had 
that  beautiful  thought  of  Chateaubriand's  so  forced 
upon  me— "Religion  has  rocked  us  in  the  cradle  of 
life,  and  her  maternal  hand  shall  close  our  eyes, 
while  her  holiest  melodies  soothe  us  to  rest  in  the 
cradle  of  death." 

There  are,  without  doubt,  many  persons,  who  can 
say  that  in  their  pilgrimage  of  life  they  have  truly 
"found  their  warmest  welcome  at  an  inn."  My  ex- 
perience outstrips  that,  for  I  have  received  one  of 
my  most  cordial  greetings  in  a  cafe.  The  establish- 
ment in  question  is  so  eminently  American,  that  . 
should  feel  as  if  I  had  neglected  a  sacred  duty,  if  I 
did  not  describe  it,  for  the  benefit  of  future  sojourn- 
ers  in  the  French  capital,  who  are  hereby  requested 
to  overhaul  their  memorandum  books  and  make  a 
note  of  it.  It  does  not  boast  the  magnificence  and 
luxury  of  the  Cafe  de  Paris,  Very's,  the  Trois  Freres 
Provencaux,  nor  of  Taylor's;  nor  does  it  thrust  it- 
self forward  into  the  publicity  of  the  gay  Boule- 
vards, or  of  the  thronged  arcades  of  the  Palais 
Royal.  It  does  not  appeal  to  those  who  love  the 
noise  and  dust  of  fashion's  highway;  for  them  it  has 
no  welcome.  But  to  those  who  love  "the  cool, 
sequestered  path  of  life,"  it  offers  a  degree  of  quiet 
comfort,  to  which  the  "slaves  of  passion,  avarice, 
and  pride,"  who  view  themselves  in  the  mirrors  of 


AIX  TO  PARIS 

the  Maison  Doree,  are  strangers.  You  turn  from 
the  Boulevard  des  Italiens  into  the  Rue  de  la  Micho- 
diere,  which  you  perambulate  until  you  come  to  num- 
ber six,  where  you  will  stop  and  take  an  observation. 
Perhaps  wonder  will  predominate  over  admiration. 
The  front  of  the  establishment  does  not  exceed 
twelve  feet  in  width,  and  the  sign  over  the  door 
shows  that  it  is  a  Cretnerie.  The  fact  is  also  adum- 
brated symbolically  by  a  large  brass  can,  which  is  set 
over  the  portal.  In  one  of  the  windows  may  be 
observed  a  neatly-executed  placard,  to  this  effect:— 

Aux  AMERICAINS 
Specialite. 


Pumpkin  Pie. 

"Enter — its  vastness  overwhelms  thee  .not!"  On 
the  contrary,  having  passed  through  the  little  front 
shop,  you  stand  in  a  room  ten  or  twelve  feet  square 
—just  the  size  of  Washington  Irving' s  "empire,"  in 
the  Red  Horse  Inn,  at  Stratford.  This  little  room 
is  furnished  with  two  round  tables,  a  sideboard,  and 
several  chairs,  and  is  decorated  with  numerous 
crayon  sketches  of  the  knights  of  the  aforesaid  round 
tables.  You  make  the  acquaintance  of  the  excellent 
Madame  Busque,  and  order  your  dinner,  which  is 
served  promptly  and  with  a  motherly  care,  which 
will  at  first  remind  you  of  the  time  when  your  bib 
was  carefully  tied  on,  and  you  were  lifted  to  a  seat 
on  the  family  Bible,  which  had  been  placed  on  a 
chair,  to  bring  the  juvenile  mouth  into  proper  rela- 
tions with  the  table. 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

Nothing  can  surpass  the  home  feeling  that  took 
possession  of  me  when  I  found  myself  once  more  in 
Madame  Busque's  little  back  room  at  No.  6,  Rue  de 
la  Michodiere.  How  cordial  was  that  estimable 
lady's  welcome  1  She  made  herself  as  busy  as  a  cat 
with  one  chicken,  and  prepared  for  me  a  "tired 
nature's  sweet  restorer"  in  the  shape  of  one  of  her 
famous  omelets.  The  old  den  had  not  changed  in 
the  least.  Madame  Busque  used  to  threaten  occa- 
sionally to  paint  it,  and  otherwise  improve  and  em- 
bellish it;  but  we  always  told  her  that  if  she  did  any 
thing  of  that  kind,  or  tried  to  render  it  less  dingy,  or 
snug,  or  unpretending,  we  would  never  eat  another 
of  her  pumpkin  pies.  Not  all  the  mirrors  and  mag- 
nificence of  the  resorts  of  fashion  can  equal  the  quiet 
cosiness  of  Madame  Busque's  back  room.  You  meet 
all  kinds  of  company  there.  The  blouse  is  at  home 
there,  as  well  as  its  ambitious  cousin,  the  broadcloth 
coat.  Law  and  medicine,  literature  and  art,  pleasure 
and  honest  toil,  meet  there  upon  equal  terms.  Our 
own  aristocratic  Washington  never  dreamed  of  such 
a  democracy  as  his  calm  portrait  looks  down  upon  in 
that  room.  Then  we  have  such  a  delightful  neigh- 
bourhood there.  I  feel  as  if  the  charcoal  woman  of 
the  next  door  but  one  below  was  some  relation  to  me 
—at  least  an  aunt;  she  always  has  a  pleasant  word 
and  a  smile  for  the  frequenters  of  No.  6 ;  and  then  it 
is  so  disinterested  on  her  part,  for  we  can  none  of  us 
need  any  of  her  charcoal.  I  hope  that  no  person 
who  reads  this  will  be  misled  by  it,  and  go  to  Ma- 
dame Busque's  cremerie  expecting  to  find  there  the 
variety  which  the  restaurants  boast,  for  he  will  be 


AIX  TO  PARIS 

disappointed.  But  he  will  find  every  thing  there  of 
the  best  description.  My  taste  in  food  (as  in  most 
other  matters)  is  a  very  catholic  one:  I  can  eat  beef 
with  the  English,  garlic  and  onions  with  the  French, 
sauerkraut  with  the  Germans,  macaroni  with  the 
Italians,  pilaf  with  the  Turks,  baked  beans  with  the 
Yankees,  hominy  with  the  southerners,  and  oysters 
with  any  body.  But  as  I  feel  age  getting  the  better 
of  me  day  by  day,  I  think  I  grow  to  be  more  and 
more  of  a  pre-Raphaelite  in  these  things.  So  I  crave 
nothing  more  luxurious  than  a  good  steak  or  chop, 
with  the  appropriate  vegetables;  and  these  are  to  be 
had  in  their  perfection  at  Madame  Busque's.  My 
benison  upon  her! 

The  canicular  weather  I  suffered  from  in  the  south 
followed  me  even  here.  I  found  every  body  talking 
about  the  extraordinary  chaleur.  Shade  of  John 
Rogers!  how  the  sun  has  glared  down  upon  Paris, 
day  after  day,  without  winking,  until  air-tight  stoves 
are  refrigerators  compared  to  it,  and  even  old-fash- 
ioned preaching  is  outdone !  How  the  asphalte  side- 
walks of  the  Boulevards  have  melted  under  his  rays, 
and  perfumed  the  air  with  any  thing  but  a  Sabaean 
odour!  The  fragrance  of  the  linden  trees  was  en- 
tirely overpowered.  The  thought  of  the  helmets  of 
the  cavalry  was  utterly  intolerable.  Tortoni's  and 
the  cafes  were  crowded.  Great  was  the  clamour  for 
ices.  Greater  still  was  the  rush  to  the  cool  shades  of 
the  public  gardens,  or  the  environs  of  Bougival  and 
Marly.  At  last,  the  welcome  rain  came  hissing  down 
upon  these  heated  roofs;  and  malheur  to  the  man 
who  ventures  out  during  these  days  without  his  um- 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

brella.  It  has  been  a  rain  of  terror.  It  almost  spoilt 
the  great  national  fete  of  the  I5th;  but  the  people 
made  the  best  of  it,  and,  between  the  free  theatrical 
performances  at  sixteen  theatres,  the  superb  illumi- 
nations, and  the  fireworks,  seemed  to  have  a  very 
merry  time.  I  went  in  the  morning  to  that  fine  lofty 
old  church,  (whose  Lady  Chapel  is  a  splendid  monu- 
ment of  Couture's  artistic  genius,)  St.  Eustache, 
where  I  heard  a  new  mass,  by  one  M.  L'Hote.  It 
was  well  executed,  and  the  orchestral  parts  were  par- 
ticularly effective.  After  the  mass,  the  annual  Te 
Deum  for  the  Emperor  was  sung.  The  effect  of  the 
latter  was  very  grand;  indeed,  when  it  was  finished, 
I  was  just  thinking  that  it  was  impossible  for  music 
to  surpass  it,  when  the  full  orchestra  and  two  organs 
united  in  a  burst  of  harmony  that  almost  lifted  me 
off  my  feet.  I  recognized  the  old  Gregorian  anthem 
that  is  sung  every  Sunday  in  all  the  churches,  and 
when  it  had  been  played  through,  the  trumpets  took 
up  the  air  of  the  chant,  above  the  rest  of  the  accom- 
paniment, and  the  clear,  alto  voice  of  one  of  those 
scarlet-capped  choir-boys  rang  out  the  words,  Do- 
mine,  salvum  fac  imperatorem  nostrum,  Napoleo- 
nem,  in  a  way  that  seemed  to  make  those  old  arches 
vibrate,  and  wonderfully  quickened  the  circulation  in 
the  veins  of  every  listener.  It  was  like  the  gradual 
mounting  and  heaving  up  of  a  high  sea  in  a  storm 
on  the  Atlantic,  which,  when  it  has  reached  a  pitch 
you  thought  impossible,  curls  majestically  over,  and, 
breaking  into  a  creamy  foam,  loses  itself  in  a  tran- 
sitory vision  of  emerald  brilliancy,  that  for  the 
moment  realizes  the  most  gorgeous  and  improbable 
fables  of  Eastern  luxury.  It  made  even  me,  not- 


AIX  TO  PARIS 

withstanding  my  prejudices  in  favour  of  republican- 
ism, forget  the  spread  eagle,  and  my  free  (and 
easy)  native  land,  and  for  several  hours  I  found 
myself  singing  that  solemn  anthem  over  in  a  most 
impressive  manner.  Vvve  I'Empereur! 


PARIS 

THIS  is  a  wonderful  city.  It  seems  to  me,  as  I 
ride  up  and  down  the  gay  Boulevards  on  the 
roof  of  an  omnibus,  or  gaze  into  the  brilliant  shop- 
windows  of  the  Palais  Royal,  or  watch  the  happy 
children  in  the  garden  of  the  Tuileries,  or  stand 
upon  the  bridges  and  take  in  as  much  as  I  can  at  once 
of  gardens,  palaces,  and  church  towers—  it  seems  to 
me  like  a  great  theatre,  filled  with  gay  company,  to 
whom  the  same  grand  spectacle  is  always  being 
shown,  and  whose  faces  always  reflect  something  of 
that  brilliancy  which  lights  up  the  gorgeous,  never- 
ending,  last  scene  of  the  drama.  I  know  that  the 
play  has  its  underplot  of  vicious  poverty  and  crime, 
but  they  shrink  from  the  glare  of  the  footlights  and 
the  radiance  of  the  red  fire  that  lights  up  the  scene. 
Taken  in  the  abstract—  taken  as  it  appears  from  the 
outside—  Paris  is  the  most  perfect  whole  the  world 
can  show.  It  was  a  witty  remark  of  a  well-known 
citizen  of  Boston,  touching  the  materialistic  views  of 
many  of  his  friends,  that  "when  good  Boston  people 
die,  they  go  to  Paris."  I  know  many  whose  highest 
idea  of  heaven  would  find  its  embodiment  in  the 
sunshine  of  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  or  the  gas  light 
of  the  Rue  de  Rivoli.  Paris  captivates  you  at  once, 
In  this  it  differs  from  Rome.  You  do  not  grow  to 
love  it;  you  feel  its  charms  before  you  have  recov- 
ered from  the  fatigue  of  your  journey—  before  you 


u  122. 


PARIS 

have  even  reached  your  hotel,  as  you  ride  along  and 
recognize  the  buildings  and  monuments  which  books 
and  pictures  have  made  familiar.  In  Rome  all  is 
different.  Michel  Angelo's  mighty  dome,  to  be  sure, 
does  impress  you,  as  you  come  to  the  city;  but  when 
you  enter,  the  narrow  streets  are  such  a  contrast  to 
the  broad,  free  campagna  you  have  just  left,  that 
you  feel  oppressed  and  cramped  as  you  ride  through 
them.  You  find  one  of  the  old  temples  kept  in  re- 
pair and  serving  as  a  custom  house;  this  is  a  damper 
at  the  outset,  and  you  sigh  for  something  to  revive 
the  ancient  customs  of  the  world's  capital.  You 
walk  into  the  Forum  the  next  day,  musing  upon  the 
line  of  the  twelve  Caesars,  and  your  progress  is  ar- 
rested, and  your  sense  of  the  dramatic  unities  of 
your  position  deeply  wounded,  by  an  unamusing  and 
prosaic  clothes-line.  You  keep  on  and  try  to  recall 
Cicero,  and  Catiline,  and  Jugurtha,  and  Servius  Tul- 
lius,  and  Brutus,  and  Virginius, — but  it  is  useless,  for 
you  find  a  cow  feeding  there  as  quietly  as  if  she  were 
on  the  hills  of  Berkshire.  The  whole  city  seems  sad 
and  mouldy,  and  out  of  date,  and  you  think  you  will 
"do  the  sights"  as  rapidly  as  possible,  and  then  be 
off.  But  before  many  days  you  find  that  all  is 
changed.  The  moss  that  clothes  those  broken  walls 
becomes  as  venerable  in  your  sight  as  the  gray  hairs 
upon  your  mother's  brow;  the  ivy  that  enwreathes 
those  old  towers  and  columns  seems  to  have  wound 
itself  around  your  heart  and  bound  it  forever  to  that 
spot.  Clothes-lines,  dirt,  and  all  the  inconveniences 
inseparable  from  the  older  civilization  of  Rome, 
fade  away.  The  Forum,  the  Palace  of  the  Cassars, 
the  Appian  Way,  all  become  instinct  with  a  new— 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

or  rather  with  their  old  life;  and  you  feel  that  you 
are  in  the  Rome  of  Livy  and  Sallust,— you  have 
found  the  Rome  of  which  you  dreamed  in  boyhood, 
and  you  are  happy.  With  Paris,  as  I  have  said,  you 
are  not  obliged  to  serve  such  an  apprenticeship.  You 
have  read  of  Paris  in  history,  in  novels,  in  guide- 
books, in  the  lucubrations  of  the  whole  tribe  of  cor- 
respondents—you recognize  it  at  once  on  seeing  it, 
and  accept  it  for  all  that  it  pretends  to  be.  And  you 
are  not  deceived.  And  this,  I  apprehend,  is  the 
reason  why  we  never  feel  that  deep,  clinging  affec- 
tion for  Paris  that  we  do  for  that  "goddess  of  all  the 
nations,  to  whom  nothing  is  equal  and  nothing  sec- 
ond"—that  city  which  (as  one  of  her  prophet-poets 
said)  shall  ever  be  "the  capital  of  the  world,  for 
whatever  her  arms  have  not  conquered  shall  be  hers 
by  religion."  You  feel  that  Paris  is  the  capital  of 
Europe,  and  you  bow  before  it  as  you  would  before 
a  sovereign  whose  word  was  law. 

I  wonder  whether  every  body  judges  of  all  new 
things  by  the  criterion  of  childhood,  as  I  find  myself 
constantly  doing.  Whatever  it  may  be,  I  apply  to  it 
the  test  of  my  youthful  recollections  of  something 
similar,  and  it  almost  always  suffers  by  the  process. 
Those  beautiful  architectural  wonders  that  pierce 
the  sky  at  Strasburg  and  Antwerp  will  bear  no  com- 
parison, in  point  of  height,  with  the  steeple  of  the 
Old  South  as  it  exists  in  the  memory  of  my  child- 
hood. I  have  never  seen  a  picture  gallery  in  Europe 
which  awakened  any  thing  like  my  old  feelings  on 
visiting  one  of  the  first  Athenaeum  exhibitions  many 
years  ago.  Those  wonderful  productions  of  Horace 
Vernet,  in  which  one  may  read  the  warlike  history  of 


PARIS 

France,  are  nothing  compared  to  my  recollections  of 
Trumbull's  "Sortie  of  Gibraltar,"  as  seen  through 
an  antediluvian  tin  trumpet  which  considerably  inter- 
fered with  my  vision,  but  which  I  thought  it  was 
necessary  to  use.  I  have  visited  libraries  which  ante- 
dated by  centuries  the  discovery  of  America,  — I 
have  rambled  over  castles  which  seemed  to  reecho 
with  the  clank  of  armour  and  the  clarion  calls  of  the 
old  days  of  chivalry,— I  have  walked  through  the 
long  corridors  and  halls  of  the  Vatican  with  cardi- 
nals and  kings, — I  have  mused  in  church-crypts  and 
cloisters,  in  whose  silent  shade  the  dead  of  a  thou- 
sand years  reposed,— but  I  have  never  yet  been  im- 
pressed with  any  thing  like  the  awe  which  the  old 
Athenaeum  in  Pearl  Street  used  to  inspire  into  my 
boyish  heart.  Pearl  Street  in  those  days  was  as 
innocent  of  traffic  and  its  turmoil  as  the  quiet  roads 
around  Jamaica  Pond  are  now.  A  pasture,  in  which 
the  Hon.  Jonathan  Phillips  kept  a  cow,  extended 
through  to  Oliver  Street,  and  handsome  old-fash- 
ioned private  houses  with  gardens  around  them  oc- 
cupied the  place  of  the  present  rows  of  granite 
warehouses.  The  Athenaeum,  surrounded  by  horse- 
chestnut  trees,  stood  there  in  aristocratic  dignity  and 
repose,  which  it  seemed  almost  sacrilegious  to  dis- 
turb with  the  noise  of  our  childish  sports.  There 
were  a  few  old  gentlemen  who  used  to  frequent  its 
reading-room,  whose  white  hair,  (and  some  of  them 
even  wore  knee  breeches  and  queues  and  powder,) 
always  stilled  our  boyish  clamour  as  we  played  on 
the  grass-plots  in  the  yard.  To  some  of  these  old 
men  our  heads  were  often  uncovered,— for  children 
were  politer  in  those  days  than  now, — and  to  our 

1:1253 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

young  imagination  it  seemed  as  if  they  were  sages, 
who  carried  about  with  them  an  atmosphere  of 
learning  and  the  fragrance  of  academic  groves. 
They  seemed  as  much  a  part  of  the  mysterious  old 
establishment  as  the  books  in  the  library,  the  dusty 
busts  in  the  entries,  or  the  old  librarian  himself. 
Sometimes  I  used  to  venture  into  those  still  passages, 
and  steal  a  look  into  that  reading-room  whose  quiet 
was  never  broken,  save  by  the  wealthy  creak  of  some 
old  citizen's  boots,  or  by  the  long  breathing  of  some 
venerable  frequenter  of  the  place,  enjoying  his  after- 
noon nap.  In  later  years  I  came  to  know  the 
Athenaeum  more  familiarly;  the  old  gentlemen  lost 
the  character  of  sages  and  became  estimable  indi- 
viduals of  quiet  tastes,  who  were  fatiguing  the  Mas- 
sachusetts Hospital  Life  Insurance  Company  by 
their  long-continued  perusal  of  the  Daily  Advertiser 
and  the  Gentleman's  Magazine ;  but  my  old  impres- 
sion of  the  awful  mystery  of  the  building  remains  to 
this  day.  I  mourned  over  the  removal  to  the  present 
fine  position,  and  I  seek  in  vain  amid  the  stucco-work 
and  white  paint  of  the  new  edifice  for  the  charm 
which  enthralled  me  in  the  old  home  of  the  institu- 
tion. Some  people,  carried  away  by  the  utilitarian 
spirit  of  the  age,  may  think  that  it  is  a  great  improve- 
ment; but  to  me  it  seems  nothing  but  an  unwarrant- 
able innovation  on  the  established  order  of  things, 
and  a  change  for  the  worse.  Where  is  the  quiet  of 
the  old  place?  Younger  and  less  reverential  men 
have  risen  up  in  the  places  of  the  old,  and  have  de- 
stroyed all  that  rendered  the  old  library  respectable. 
The  good  old  times  when  Dr.  Bass,  the  librarian,  sat 
on  one  side  of  the  fireplace,  and  the  late  John  Brom- 


PARIS 

field  (with  his  silk  handkerchief  spread  over  his 
knees)  on  the  other,  and  read  undisturbed  for  hours, 
have  passed  away.  A  hundred  persons  use  the  li- 
brary now  for  one  who  did  then;  and  I  am  left  to 
feed  upon  the  memory  of  better  times,  when  learn- 
ing was  a  quiet,  comfortable,  select  sort  of  thing,  and 
mutter  secret  maledictions  on  the  revolutionary  spir- 
its who  have  made  it  otherwise. 

But  pardon  me,  dear  reader,— all  this  has  little  to 
do  with  Paris,  except  by  way  of  illustration  of  my 
remark  that  the  youthful  standard  of  intellectual 
weights  and  measures  is  the  only  infallible  one  we 
ever  know.  But  Paris  is  something  by  itself:  it  over- 
rides all  standards  of  greatness  or  beauty,  and  all 
preconceived  notions  of  itself,  and  addresses  itself 
with  confidence  to  every  taste.  Ladies  love  Paris  as 
a  vast  warehouse  of  jewelry  and  all  the  rich  stuffs 
that  hide  the  crinoline  from  eyes  profane.  Physi- 
cians revel  in  its  hospitals,  and  talk  of  "splendid 
operations,"  such  as  make  the  unscientific  change 
colour. 

Paris  is  a  world  in  itself.  Here  may  the  Yankee 
find  his  pumpkin-pie  and  sherry-cobblers,  the  Eng- 
lishman his  rosbif,  the  German  his  sauerkraut,  the 
Italian  his  macaroni.  Here  may  the  lover  of  dra- 
matic art  choose  his  performance  among  thirty 
theatres,  and  he  who,  with  Mr.  Swiveller,  loves  "the 
mazy,"  will  find  at  the  Jardin  Mabille  a  bower 
shaded  for  him.  Here  the  bookworm  can  mouse 
about,  in  more  than  twenty  large  public  libraries,  and 
spend  weeks  in  the  delightful  exploration  of  count- 
less book-stalls.  Here  the  student  of  art  can  read  the 
history  of  France  on  the  walls  of  Versailles,  or, 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

revelling  in  the  opulence  of  the  Louvre,  forget  his 
studies,  his  technicalities,  his  criticisms,  in  contempla- 
tion of  the  majestic  loveliness  of  Murillo's  "sinless 
Mother  of  the  sinless  Child."  Here  may  "fireside 
philanthropists,  great  at  the  pen,"  compare  their 
magnificent  theories  with  the  works  of  delicate  ladies 
who  have  left  the  wealth  they  possessed  and  the 
society  they  adorned,  for  the  humble  garb  of  the  Sis- 
ter of  Charity  and  a  laborious  ministry  to  the  poor, 
the  diseased,  and  the  infirm,  and  meditate  in  the  cool 
quadrangles  of  hospitals  and  benevolent  institutions, 
founded  by  saints,  and  preserved  in  their  integrity 
by  the  piety  of  their  disciples.  Here  may  the  man 
who  wishes  to  look  beyond  this  brilliant  world,  find 
churches  ever  open,  inviting  to  prayer  and  medita- 
tion, where  he  may  be  carried  beyond  himself  by  the 
choicest  strains  of  Haydn  and  the  solemn  grandeur 
of  the  Gregorian  Chant, — or  may  be  thrilled  by  the 
eloquent  periods  of  Ravignan  or  Lacordaire,  until 
the  unseen  eternal  fills  his  whole  soul,  and  the  visible 
temporal  glories  of  the  gay  capital  seem  to  him  the 
transient  vanities  they  really  are. 

How  few  people  really  know  Paris !  To  most 
minds  it  presents  itself  only  as  a  place  of  general 
pleasure-seeking  and  dissipation.  I  have  seen  many 
men  whose  only  recollections  of  Paris  were  such  as 
will  give  them  no  pleasure  in  old  age,  who  flattered 
themselves  that  they  knew  Paris.  They  thought 
that  the  whole  city  was  given  up  to  the  folly  that 
captivated  them,  and  so  they  represent  Paris  as  one 
vast  reckless  masquerade.  I  have  seen  others  who, 
walking  through  the  thronged  cafes  and  restaurants, 
have  felt  themselves  justified  in  declaring  that  the 

CI282 


PARIS 

French  had  no  domestic  life,  and  were  as  ignorant  of 
family  joys  as  their  language  is  destitute  of  a  single 
word  to  express  our  good  old  Saxon  word  "home"; 
not  knowing  that  there  are  in  Paris  thousands  of 
families  as  closely  knit  together  as  any  that  dwell  in 
the  smoky  cities  of  Old  England,  or  amid  the  bustle 
and  activity  of  our  new  world.  Good  people  may 
turn  up  their  eyes,  and  talk  and  write  as  many  jere- 
miads as  they  will  about  the  vanity  and  wickedness 
of  Paris;  but  the  truth  is,  that  this  great  Babel  has 
even  for  them  its  cheering  side,  if  they  would  but 
keep  their  eyes  open  to  discover  it.  Let  them  visit 
the  churches  on  the  vigils  of  great  feasts,  and  every 
Saturday,  and  see  the  crowds  that  throng  the  con- 
fessionals: let  them  rise  an  hour  or  two  earlier  than 
usual,  and  go  into  any  of  the  churches,  and  they  will 
find  more  worshippers  there  on  any  common  week- 
day morning  than  half  of  the  churches  in  New  Eng- 
land collect  on  Sundays.  Let  them  visit  that 
magnificent  temple,  the  Madeleine,  and  see  the  free- 
dom from  social  distinctions  which  prevails  there: 
the  soldier,  the  civilian,  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the 
high-bred  lady,  the  servant  in  livery,  and  the  negress 
with  her  bright  yellow  and  red  kerchief  wound 
around  her  head,  are  there  met,  on  an  equality  that 
free  America  knows  not  of. 

The  observance  of  the  Sunday  is  a  sign  of  the 
times  which  ought  not  to  be  overlooked.  Only  a  few 
years  ago,  and  suspension  of  business  on  Sunday  was 
so  uncommon  that  notice  was  given  by  a  sign  to  that 
effect  on  the  front  of  the  few  shops  whose  pro- 
prietors indulged  in  that  strange  caprice.  The  signs 
(like  certain  similar  ones  on  apothecary  shops  in 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

Boston,  to  the  effect  that  prescriptions  are  the  only 
business  attended  to  on  the  first  day  of  the  week) 
used  to  seem  to  me  like  a  bait  to  catch  the  custom  of 
the  godly.  But  the  signs  have  passed  away  before 
this  movement,  inaugurated  by  the  Emperor,  who 
forbade  labour  on  the  public  works  on  Sunday,  and 
preached  up  by  the  late  Archbishop  of  Paris  and  the 
parish  clergy.  There  are  few  shops  in  Paris  that  do 
not  close  on  Sunday  now — at  least  in  the  afternoon. 
And  this  is  done  by  the  free  will  of  the  trades-people : 
it  is  not  the  result  of  a  legislative  enactment.  The 
law  here  leaves  all  people  free  in  regard  to  their  re- 
ligious duties.  The  shops  of  the  Jews,  of  course, 
are  open  on  Sunday,  for  they  are  obliged  to  close  on 
Saturday,  and  of  course  ought  not  to  be  expected  to 
observe  two  days.  Of  course,  too,  the  public  gal- 
leries, and  gardens,  and  places  of  amusement  are  all 
open;  God  forbid  that  the  hard-faring  children  of 
toil  should  be  cheated  out  of  any  innocent  recreation 
on  the  only  free  day  they  have  by  any  attempts  to 
judaize  the  Christian  Sunday  into  a  sabbath.  It  is  a 
great  mistake  to  suppose  that  people  can  be  made 
better  by  diminishing  the  sources  of  innocent  pleas- 
ure. No;  if  the  Sunday  be  made  a  hard,  uninterest- 
ing day,  when  smiling  is  a  grave  impropriety,  and  a 
hearty  laugh  a  mortal  sin,  children  will  begin  by 
disliking  the  day,  and  end  by  despising  the  religion 
that  made  it  gloomy.  But  provide  the  people  with 
music  in  the  public  parks  on  Sunday  afternoon  and 
evening, — make  the  day  a  cheerful,  happy  time  to 
those  who  are  ingulfed  in  the  carking  cares  of  life  all 
the  rest  of  the  week, — make  it  a  day  which  children 
shall  look  forward  to  with  longing,  and  you  will  find 


PARIS 

that  the  people  are  better,  and  happier,  and  thriftier 
for  the  change.  You  will  find  that  the  mechanic  or 
labourer,  instead  of  lounging  away  his  Sunday  in  a 
grog-shop,  (for  the  business  goes  on  even  though 
the  front  door  may  be  barred  and  the  shutters 
closed,)  will  be  ambitious  to  take  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren to  hear  the  music,  and  will  after  a  time  become 
as  well  behaved  as  the  common  run  of  people.  It  is 
better  to  use  the  merest  worldly  motives  to  keep  men 
in  the  path  of  decency,  than  to  let  them  slide  away  to 
perdition  because  they  refuse  to  listen  to  the  more 
dignified  teachings  of  religion. 

I  have  been  much  impressed  by  a  visit  to  a  large, 
but  unpretentious-looking  house  in  the  Rue  du  Bac — 
the  "mother-house"  of  that  admirable  organization, 
the  Sisters  of  Charity.  It  was  not  much  of  a  visit,  to 
be  sure — for  not  even  my  gray  hairs  and  respectable 
appearance  could  gain  for  me  an  admission  beyond 
the  strangers'  parlour,  the  courtyard,  and  the  cool, 
quiet  chapel.  But  that  was  enough  to  increase  my 
respect  and  admiration  for  those  devoted  women. 
The  community  there  consists  of  six  hundred  Sisters 
of  Charity,  whose  whole  time  is  occupied  in  taking 
care  of  the  sick,  and  needy,  and  neglected  in  the 
hospitals  and  asylums,  and  in  every  quarter  of  the 
city.  You  see  them  at  every  turn,  going  quietly 
about  their  work  of  benevolence,  and  presenting  a 
fine  contrast  to  some  of  our  noisy  theorists  at  home. 
I  may  be  in  error,  but  it  strikes  me  that  that  com- 
munity is  doing  more  in  its  present  mode  of  action 
to  advance  the  true  dignity  and  "rights"  of  the  sex, 
than  if  it  were  to  resolve  itself  into  a  convention, 
after  the  American  fashion.  I  was  somewhat  anx- 

C'30 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

ious  to  inquire  whether  any  of  the  sisters  of  the  com- 
munity had  ever  taken  to  lecturing  or  preaching  in 
public;  but  the  modest  and  unassuming  manner  of  all 
those  whom  I  saw,  rendered  such  a  question  unnec- 
essary. I  fear  that  oratory  is  sadly  neglected  among 
them;  with  this  exception,  and  perhaps  the  absence 
of  a  certain  strong-mindedness  in  their  characters,  I 
think  that  they  will  compare  very  favourably  with 
any  of  our  distinguished  female  philanthropists. 
They  wear  the  same  gray  habit  and  odd-shaped 
white  bonnet  that  the  Sisters  of  Charity  wear  in  Bos- 
ton. While  we  praise  the  self-forgetful  heroism  of 
Florence  Nightingale  as  it  deserves,  let  us  not  forget 
that  France  sent  out  her  Florence  Nightingales  to 
the  Crimea  by  fifties  and  hundreds— young  and  deli- 
cate women,  hiding  their  personality  under  the  com- 
mon dress  of  a  religious  order,  casting  aside  the 
names  that  would  recall  their  rank  in  the  world, 
unencouraged  in  their  beneficence  by  any  newspaper 
paragraphs,  and  unrewarded  save  by  the  sweet  con- 
sciousness of  duty  done.  The  Emperor  Alexander, 
struck  by  the  part  played  in  the  Crimean  campaign 
by  the  Sisters  of  Charity,  has  recently  asked  the 
superior  of  the  order  to  detail  five  hundred  of  the 
sisters,  for  duty  in  the  hospitals  of  Russia.  It  is 
understood  that  the  request  will  be  complied  with  so 
far  as  the  number  of  the  community  will  permit. 

If  I  were  asked  to  sum  up  in  one  sentence  the 
practical  result  of  my  observations  of  men  and  man- 
ners here  on  the  continent,  I  should  say  that  it  was 
this :  We  have  a  great  deal  to  learn  in  America  con- 
cerning the  philosophy  of  life.  I  do  not  mean  that 
philosophy  which  teaches  us  that  "it  is  not  all  of  life 


PARIS 

to  live,"  but  the  philosophy  of  making  ninety-three 
cents  furnish  the  same  amount  of  comfort  in  Amer- 
ica that  five  francs  do  in  Paris.  The  spirit  of  cen- 
tralization is  stronger  here  than  in  any  American 
city:  (it  is  too  true,  as  Heine  said,  that  to  speak  of 
the  departments  of  France  having  a  political  opinion 
as  distinguished  from  Paris,  "is  to  talk  of  a  man's 
legs  thinking;")  and  there  is  no  reason  why  people 
of  moderate  means  should  not  be  able  to  live  as 
respectably,  comfortably,  and  economically  in  our 
cities  as  here,  if  they  will  only  use  a  little  common 
sense.  The  model-lodging-house  enterprise  was  a 
most  praiseworthy  one,  but  it  seems  to  have  been 
confined  only  to  the  wants  of  the  most  necessitous 
class  in  the  community.  There  is,  however,  a  large 
class  of  salesmen,  and  book-keepers,  and  mechanics, 
on  salaries  of  six  hundred  to  twelve  or  fourteen  hun- 
dred dollars,  whose  position  is  no  less  deserving  of 
commiseration.  When  the  prices  of  beefsteak  and 
potatoes  went  up  so  amazingly  a  few  years  ago, 
there  were  few  salaries  that  experienced  a  similar 
augmentation.  The  position  of  the  men  on  small 
salaries  therefore  became  peculiar,  not  to  say  un- 
pleasant, as  rents  rose  in  the  same  proportion  as 
every  thing  else.  Any  person,  familiar  with  the  rents 
of  brick  houses  for  small  families  in  most  of  the 
Atlantic  cities,  will  see  how  difficult  it  is  for  such 
people  as  these  to  live  within  their  means.  Now,  the 
remedy  for  this  evil  is  a  simple  one,  but  it  requires 
some  public-spirited  men  to  initiate  it.  Suppose  that 
a  few  large,  handsome  houses,  on  the  European 
plan,  (that  is,  having  a  suite  of  rooms,  comprising 
a  parlour,  dining-room,  two  or  three  bedrooms,  and 

D33H 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

a  kitchen,  on  each  floor,)  were  built  in  any  of  our 
great  thoroughfares, — the  ground  floors  might  be 
used  for  shops, — for  there  is  no  reason  why  respect- 
able people  should  any  more  object  to  living  over 
shops  there,  than  on  the  Boulevards.  Such  houses, 
it  is  easy  to  see,  would  be  good  paying  property  to 
their  owners,  as  soon  as  people  got  into  that  way  of 
living;  and  when  salaried  men  saw  that  they  could 
get  the  equivalent,  in  comfort  and  available  room,  to 
an  ordinary  five  hundred  dollar  house  for  half  that 
rent,  in  a  central  situation,  depend  upon  it,  they 
would  not  be  long  in  learning  how  to  live  in  that 
style.  The  advantages  of  this  plan  of  domestic  life 
are  numerous  and  striking.  Housekeeping  would  be 
disarmed  of  half  its  difficulties;  the  little  kitchen 
would  furnish  the  coffee  and  eggs  in  the  morning  and 
the  tea  and  toast  at  night — the  dinner  might  be  or- 
dered from  a  neighbouring  restaurant  for  any  hour 
—  for  such  establishments  would  increase  with  the 
increase  of  apartments.  The  dangers  of  burglary 
would  be  diminished,  for  the  housekeeper  would 
have  only  the  door  leading  to  the  staircase  to  lock 
up  at  night.  The  washing  would  be  done  out  of  the 
house,  and  the  steam  of  boiling  suds,  and  all  anxiety 
about  clothes-lines,  and  sooty  chimneys,  and  windy 
weather  would  thereby  be  avoided.  Thousands  of 
people  would  be  liberated  from  the  caprice  and  petty 
tyranny  of  the  railroad  directors,  whose  action  has 
so  often  filled  our  newspapers  with  resolutions  and 
protests,  and,  so  far  as  Boston  is  concerned,  its  pen- 
insula might  be  made  the  home  of  a  population  of 
three  hundred  thousand  instead  of  a  hundred  and 
eighty  thousand  persons.  The  most  rigidly  careless 

C'343 


PARIS 

person  can  hardly  fail  to  become  a  successful  house- 
keeper, when  the  matter  is  made  so  easy  as  it  is  by 
the  European  plan.  The  plan,  too,  not  only  simpli- 
fies the  mysteries  of  domestic  economy,  but  it  snuggi- 
fies  one's  establishment  wonderfully,  and  gives  it  a 
home  feeling,  such  as  what  are  called  genteel  houses 
nowadays  wot  not  of.  The  change  has  got  to  come 
— and  the  sooner  it  does,  the  better  it  will  be  for  our 
cities,  and  many  of  their  people,  who  have  been 
driven  into  remote  and  unpleasant  suburbs  by  high 
rents,  or  who  are  held  back  from  marriage  by  the 
expenses  of  housekeeping  conducted  on  the  present 
method. 


PARIS 

THE   LOUVRE   AND   ART 

IT  is  an  inestimable  advantage  to  an  idle  man  to 
have  such  a  place  as  the  Louvre  ever  open  to 
him.  The  book-stalls  and  print-shops  of  the  quays, 
those  never-failing  sources  of  pleasure  and  of 
extravagance  in  a  small  way,  cannot  be  visited  with 
any  satisfaction  under  the  meridian  sun;  the  shop 
windows,  a  perpetual  industrial  exhibition,  grow  tire- 
some at  times ;  the  streets  are  too  crowded,  the  gar- 
dens too  empty;  the  reading  rooms  are  close;  the 
newspapers  are  stupid;  and  what  remains?  Why, 
the  Louvre  opens  its  hospitable  doors,  and,  blessing 
the  memory  of  Francis  I.,  the  tired  wanderer  enters, 
and  drinks  in  the  refreshing  coolness  of  those  quiet 
and  spacious  halls.  If  he  is  an  antiquarian,  he 
plunges  deep  into  the  arcana  of  ancient  Egypt,  and 
emulates  the  great  Champollion;  if  he  is  a  student 
of  history,  he  muses  on  the  sceptre  of  Charlemagne, 
or  the  old  gray  coat  and  coronation  robes  of  the  first 
Napoleon;  if  he  is  devoted  to  art,  he  travels  through 
that  wilderness  of  paintings  and  statuary,  and  thinks 
and  talks  about  chiaro  'scuro,  "breadth  of  colour," 
or  "bits  of  foreshortening."  But  if  he  be  a  man  of 
simple  tastes,  who  detests  technicalities,  and  enjoys 
all  such  things  in  a  quiet,  general  sort  of  way,  with- 
out knowing  exactly  what  it  is  that  pleases  him, — he 
goes  through  room  after  room,  now  stopping  for  an 
instant  before  a  set  of  antique  china,  now  speculating 


PARIS-THE  LOUVRE  AND  ART 

on  the  figure  he  should  cut  in  one  of  those  old  suits 
of  armour,  and  finally  settling  down  in  a  chair  before 
some  landscape  by  Cuyp  or  Claude,  in  which  the 
artist  seems  to  have  imprisoned  the  sunbeams  and 
the  warm,  fragrant  atmosphere  of  early  June;  or 
else  he  seats  himself  on  that  comfortable  sofa  before 
Murillo's  masterpiece,  and  contemplates  the  su- 
pernal beauty  and  holy  exaltation  of  the  face  of  her 
whom  Dante  calls  the  "Virgin  Mother,  daughter  of 
her  Son."  He  is  surrounded  by  artists,  engaged  in 
a  work  that  seems  to  verify  the  old  maxim,  Laborare 
est  orare, — each  one  striving  to  reproduce  on  his  can- 
vas the  effects  of  the  angel-guided  pencil  of  Murillo. 
I  find  it  useless  for  me  to  attempt  to  visit  the 
Louvre  systematically,  as  most  people  do.  I  have 
frequently  tried  to  do  it,  but  it  has  ended  by  my 
walking  through  one  or  two  rooms,  and  then  taking 
up  my  position  before  Murillo's  Conception,  and 
holding  it  until  the  hour  came  for  closing  the  gallery. 
When  I  was  young,  I  used  to  think  what  a  glorious 
thing  it  would  have  been  to  have  felt  the  thrill  of  joy 
that  filled  the  heart  of  the  discoverer  of  America,  or 
the  satisfaction  of  Shakspeare  when  he  had  finished 
Hamlet  or  Macbeth,  or  of  Beethoven  when  he  had 
completed  his  seventh  symphony;  but  all  that  covet- 
ousness  of  the  impossible  is  blotted  out  by  my  envy 
of  the  great  Spanish  painter.  What  must  have  been 
the  deep  transport  of  his  heart,  when  he  gazed  upon 
the  heavenly  vision  his  own  genius  had  created !  He 
must  have  felt 

" like  some  watcher  of  the  skies. 

When  a  new  planet  sails  into  his  ken, 
Or  like  stout  Cortez,  when,  with  eagle  eyes, 
He  stared  at  the  Pacific. " 

CI37:] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

In  spite  of  all  my  natural  New  England  prejudice, 
I  cannot  help  admiring  and  loving  that  old  Catholic 
devotion  to  the  Blessed  Virgin.  Its  humanizing 
effects  can  be  seen  in  the  history  of  the  middle  ages, 
and  they  are  felt  amid  all  the  bustle  and  roar  of  this 
irreverent  nineteenth  century.  Woman  cannot  again 
be  thought  the  soulless  being  heathen  philosophy 
considered  her;  she  cannot  again  become  a  slave,  for 
she  is  recognized  as  the  sister  of  her  who  was  chosen 
to  make  reparation  for  the  misdeeds  of  Mother  Eve. 
I  am  strongly  tempted  to  transcribe  here  some  lines 
written  in  pencil  on  the  fly-leaf  of  an  old  catalogue 
of  the  museum  of  the  Louvre,  and  found  on  the  sofa 
before  Murillo's  picture.  The  writer  seems  to  have 
had  in  mind  the  beautiful  conclusion  of  the  life  of 
Agricola  by  Tacitus,  where  the  great  historian  says 
that  he  would  not  forbid  the  making  of  likenesses  in 
marble  or  bronze,  but  would  only  remind  us  that 
such  images,  like  the  forms  of  their  originals,  are 
frail  and  unenduring,  while  the  beauty  of  the  mind  is 
eternal,  and  can  be  perpetuated  in  the  manners  of 
succeeding  generations  better  than  by  ignoble  ma- 
terials and  the  art  of  the  sculptor.  The  lines  appear 
to  be  a  paraphrase  of  this  idea. 


O  blest  Murillo !  what  a  task  was  thine, 

That  Mother  to  portray  whose  beauty  mild 

Combined  earth's  comeliness  with  grace  divine, — 
To  whom  our  God  and  Saviour  as  a  child 
Was  subject — upon  whom  so  oft  He  smiled! 

Yet  not  less  happy  also  in  my  part, — 
For  I,  though  in  a  world  by  sin  defiled, 

Though  lacking  genius  and  unskilled  in  art, 

May  paint  that  blessed  likeness  in  a  contrite  heart. 


PARIS-THE  LOUVRE  AND  ART 

Art  is  the  surest  and  safest  civilizer.  Popular 
education  may  be  so  perverted  as  only  to  minister  to 
new  forms  of  corruption,  but  art  purifies  itself;  it  has 
no  Voltaires,  and  Rousseaus,  and  Eugene  Sues,— for 
painting  and  sculpture,  like  poetry,  refuse  to  be 
made  the  handmaids  of  vice  or  unbelief.  Open  your 
galleries  of  art  to  the  people,  and  you  confer  on  them 
a  greater  benefit  than  mere  book  education ;  you  give 
them  a  refinement  to  which  they  would  otherwise  be 
strangers.  The  boor,  turned  loose  into  civilized 
society,  soon  catches  something  of  its  tone  of  polite- 
ness; and  those  who  are  accustomed  to  the  contem- 
plation of  forms  of  ideal  beauty  will  not  easily  be 
won  by  the  grossness  and  deformity  of  vice.  A  fine 
picture  daily  looked  at  becomes  by  degrees  a  part  of 
our  own  souls,  and  exerts  an  influence  over  us  of 
which  we  are  little  aware.  Some  English  writer — 
Hazlitt,  I  think— has  said,  that  if  a  man  were  think- 
ing of  committing  some  wicked  or  disgraceful  action, 
and  were  to  stop  short  and  look  for  a  moment  at 
some  fine  picture  with  which  he  had  been  familiar, 
he  would  inevitably  be  turned  thereby  from  his  pur- 
pose. It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  time  is  not  far  dis- 
tant when  each  of  our  great  American  cities  shall 
possess  its  gallery  of  art,  which  (on  certain  days  of 
the  week,  at  least)  shall  be  as  free  to  all  well-be- 
haved persons  as  the  public  parks  themselves.  We 
may  not  boast  the  artistic  wealth  of  Rome,  Florence, 
Paris,  Dresden,  or  any  of  the  old  capitals  of  Europe ; 
but  the  sooner  we  make  a  beginning,  the  better  it  will 
be  for  our  galleries  and  our  mob.  We  need  some 
yiore  effectual  humanizer  than  our  educational  sys- 
tem. Reading,  writing,  and  ciphering  are  great 

D39:] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

things,  but  they  are  powerless  to  overcome  the  rude- 
ness and  irreverence  of  our  people.  Our  populace 
seems  to  lack  entirely  the  sense  of  the  beautiful  or 
the  sublime.  As  Charles  Lamb  said,  "They  have, 
alas  I  no  passion  for  antiquities — for  the  tomb  of 
king  or  prelate,  sage  or  poet.  If  they  had,  they 
would  no  longer  be  the  rabble."  It  is  too  true  that 
the  attempts  which  have  been  made  to  open  private 
gardens  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  public  have  resulted 
in  the  most  shameful  abuses  of  privilege,  and  that 
flowers  are  stolen  from  the  graves  in  our  cemeteries; 
but  there  is  no  reason  for  giving  our  people  up  as 
past  praying  for,  on  the  score  of  politeness  and  com- 
mon decency.  They  must  be  educated  up  to  it :  some 
abuses  may  occur  at  first,  but  a  few  salutary  lessons  on 
the  necessity  of  submission  to  authority  will  rectify 
it  all,  and  our  people  will,  in  the  course  of  time,  be- 
come as  well-behaved  as  the  people  of  France  or 
Italy. 

I  am  no  antiquarian.  I  do  not  love  the  antique 
for  antiquity's  sake.  It  must  appeal  to  me  through 
the  medium  of  history,  or  not  at  all.  Etruscan  relics 
have  no  other  charm  for  me  than  their  beauty  of 
form.  I  care  but  little  for  Egyptian  sarcophagi  or 
their  devices  and  hieroglyphics,  and  I  would  not  go 
half  a  mile  to  see  a  wilderness  of  mummies.  When- 
ever I  feel  a  longing  for  any  thing  in  the  Egyptian  or 
heathen  line,  I  can  resort  to  Mount  Auburn,  with  its 
gateway — and  this  thought  satisfies  me;  so  that  I 
pass  by  all  such  things  without  feeling  that  I  am  a 
loser.  With  such  feelings,  there  are  many  of  the 
halls  of  the  Louvre  which  I  only  walk  through  with 
an  admiring  glance  at  their  elegance  of  arrangement. 

£140;] 


PARIS-THE  LOUVRE  AND  ART 

A  few  days  since,  in  wandering  about  there,  I  found 
a  room  which  I  had  never  seen  before,  and  which 
touched  me  more  nearly  than  any  thing  there,  except 
the  paintings.  It  has  been  opened  recently.  I  had 
been  looking  through  the  relics  of  royalty  with  a  con- 
siderable degree  of  pleasure, — meditating  on  the 
armour  of  Henry  the  Great,  the  breviary  of  St. 
Louis,  and  the  worn  satin  shoe  which  once  covered 
the  little  foot  of  Marie  Antoinette,— and  was  about 
to  leave,  when  I  noticed  that  a  door  was  open  which 
in  past  years  I  had  seen  closed.  I  pushed  in,  and 
found  myself  in  a  vast  and  magnificent  apartment,  on 
the  gorgeously  frescoed  ceiling  of  which  was  em- 
blazoned the  name — which  is  a  tower  of  strength  to 
every  Frenchman — Napoleon.  Around  the  room,  in 
elegant  glass  cases,  were  disposed  the  relics  of  the 
saint  whom  Mr.  Abbott's  bull  of  canonization  has 
placed  in  red  letters  in  the  calendar  of  Young  Amer- 
ica. Leaving  aside  all  joking  upon  the  attempts  to 
prove  that  much-slandered  monarch  a  saint,  there 
was  his  history,  written  as  Sartor  Resartus  would 
have  written  it,  in  his  clothes.  There  was  a  crayon 
sketch  of  him  at  the  age  of  sixteen;  there  was  a 
mathematical  book  which  he  had  studied,  the  case  of 
mathematical  instruments  he  had  used;  there  was  the 
coat  in  which  he  rode  up  and  down  the  lines  of 
Marengo,  inspiring  every  heart  with  heroism,  and 
every  arm  with  vigour ;  the  sword  and  coat  he  wore 
as  First  Consul;  the  glittering  robes  which  decked 
him  when  he  sat  in  the  chair  of  Clovis  and  Charle- 
magne, the  idol  of  his  nation,  and  the  terror  of  all 
the  world  besides;  the  stirrups  in  which  he  stood  at 
Waterloo,  and  saw  his  brave  legions  cut  up  and  dis- 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

persed;  and,  though  last,  not  least,  there  was  the  old 
gray  coat  and  hat  in  which  he  walked  about  at  St. 
Helena,  and  the  very  handkerchief  which  in  his 
dying  hour  wiped  the  chill  dew  of  eternity  from  his 
brow.  There  were  many  things  besides— there  were 
his  table  and  chair;  his  camp  bed  on  which  he  rested 
during  those  long  campaigns;  his  gloves,  his  razor 
strap,  his  comb,  the  clothes  of  his  little  son,  the 
"King  of  Rome,"  and  the  bow  he  played  with;  the 
saddles  and  other  presents  which  he  received  during 
his  expedition  to  the  East,  and  his  various  court 
dresses — but  the  old  gray  coat  was  the  most  attrac- 
tive of  all.  It  was  a  consolation  to  notice  that  it  had 
lost  a  button,  for  it  showed  that  though  its  wearer 
was  an  anointed  emperor,  he  was  not  exempt  from 
the  vicissitudes  of  common  humanity.  I  sat  down 
and  observed  the  people  who  visited  the  room,  and  I 
noticed  that  they  all  lingered  around  the  old  coat. 
It  made  no  difference  whether  they  spoke  English, 
French,  German,  or  any  other  tongue;  there  was 
something  which  appealed  to  them  all;  there  was  a 
common  ground,  where  the  student  and  the  enthu- 
siastic lover  of  high  art  could  join  in  harmonious 
feeling,  even  with  the  practical  man,  who  would  not 
have  cared  a  three-cent  piece  if  Praxiteles  and  Ca- 
nova  had  never  sculptured,  or  Raphael  and  Murillo 
had  never  seen  a  brush.  It  required  but  a  slight 
effort  to  fill  the  room  up  of  the  absent  hero,  and  to 
"stuff  out  his  vacant  garments  with  his  form,"  and 
perhaps  this  very  thing  tended  to  make  the  entire 
exhibition  a  sad  one.  It  was  the  most  melancholy 
commentary  on  human  glory  that  can  be  imagined. 
It  ought  to  be  placed  in  the  vestibule  of  a  church,  or 


PARIS-THE  LOUVRE  AND  ART 

in  some  more  public  place,  and  it  would  purge  a 
community  of  ambition.  What  a  sermon  might  La- 
cordaire  preach  on  the  temporal  and  the  eternal,  with 
the  sword  and  the  coronation  robes  of  Napoleon  I. 
before  him ! 

The  interest  which  I  have  seen  manifested  by  so 
many  people  in  the  relics  of  Napoleon  I.  has  af- 
forded me  considerable  amusement.  I  have  lately 
seen  so  much  ridicule  cast  upon  the  relics  of  the 
saints  preserved  in  many  of  the  churches  of  Italy,  by 
people  of  the  same  class  as  those  who  lingered  so 
reverentially  before  the  glass  cases  of  the  Napoleon 
room  in  the  Louvre,  that  I  cannot  help  thinking  how 
rare  a  virtue  consistency  is. 

Perhaps  it  may  be  owing  to  some  weakness  in  my 
mental  organization,  but  I  cannot  acknowledge  the 
propriety  of  honouring  the  burial-places  of  success- 
ful generals,  and,  at  the  same  time,  think  the  shrines 
of  the  saints  worthy  of  nothing  but  ridicule  and 
desecration.  I  found  myself,  a  few  years  ago,  look- 
ing with  grave  interest  at  an  old  coat  of  General 
Jackson's,  which  is  preserved  in  the  Patent  Office  at 
Washington;  and  I  cannot  wonder  at  the  reverence 
which  some  people  pay  to  the  garments  of  a  martyr 
in  the  cause  of  religion.  I  cannot  understand  how  it 
may  be  right  and  proper  to  celebrate  the  birthdays 
of  worldly  heroes,  and  "rank  idolatry"  to  commem- 
orate the  self-denying  heroes  of  Christianity.  I  can- 
not join  in  the  setting-up  of  statues  of  generals  and 
statesmen,  and  condemn  a  similar  homage  to  the 
saints  by  any  allusions  to  the  enormity  of  making  a 
"graven  image."  In  fine,  if  it  is  right  to  adorn  and 
reverence  the  tomb  of  the  Father  of  his  Country, 

[1433 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

(and  what  American  heart  does  not  acknowledge  its 
propriety?)  it  certainly  cannot  be  wrong  to  beautify 
and  venerate  the  tomb  of  the  chief  apostle,  and  the 
shrines  of  saints  and  martyrs  who  achieved  for  them- 
selves and  their  fellow-men  an  independence  from  a 
tyranny  infinitely  worse  than  that  from  which  Wash- 
ington liberated  America. 

I  have  recently  been  visiting  the  three  great  monu- 
ments of  the  reign  of  Napoleon  III. — the  completed 
Louvre,  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  and  the  Halles  Cen- 
trales.  As  to  the  first,  those  who  remember  those 
narrow,  nasty  streets,  which  within  six  years  were 
the  approaches  to  the  Louvre  and  the  Palais  Royal, 
and  those  rickety  old  buildings  reminding  one  too 
strongly  of  cheese  in  an  advanced  stage  of  mouldi- 
ness,  that  used  to  intrude  their  unsightly  forms  into 
the  very  middle  of  the  Place  du  Carrousel, — those 
who  recollect  the  junk  shops  that  seemed  more  fitting 
to  the  neighbourhood  of  the  docks  than  to  the  en- 
trance to  a  palace  and  a  gallery  of  art,  —  feel  in  a 
manner  lost,  when  they  walk  about  the  courtyards  of 
the  noble  edifice  which  has  taken  the  place  of  so 
much  deformity.  If  the  new  wings  of  the  Louvre 
had  been  built  in  one  range  instead  of  quadrangles, 
they  would  extend  more  than  half  a  mile !  Half  a 
mile  of  palace,  and  a  palace,  too,  which  in  building 
has  occupied  one  hundred  and  fifty  sculptors  for  the 
past  five  years!  Those  who  have  not  visited  Paris 
within  five  years  will  recollect  the  Bois  de  Boulogne 
only  as  a  vast  neglected  tract  of  woodland,  which 
seemed  a  great  waste  of  the  raw  material  in  a  place 
where  firewood  is  so  expensive  as  it  is  here.  It  is 
now  laid  out  in  beautiful  avenues  and  walks,  the 

£144:1 


PARIS-THE  LOUVRE  AND  ART 

extent  of  which  is  said  to  be  nearly  two  hundred 
miles.  You  are  refreshed  by  the  sound  of  waterfalls 
and  the  coolness  of  grottos,  the  rocks  for  the  forma- 
tion of  which  were  brought  from  Fontainebleau, 
more  than  forty  miles  distant  from  Paris.  You  walk 
on,  and  find  yourself  on  the  shores  of  a  lake,  a  mile 
or  two  in  length,  with  two  or  three  lovely  islands  in 
it,  and  in  whose  bright  blue  waters  thousands  of 
trout  are  sporting.  That  wild  waste,  the  old  Bois  de 
Boulogne,  which  few  persons  but  duellists  ever  vis- 
ited, has  passed  away,  and  in  its  place  you  find  the 
most  magnificent  park  in  the  world.  It  is  indeed  a  per- 
fect triumph  of  landscape  gardening.  It  is  nature  it- 
self, not  in  miniature,  but  on  such  a  scale  as  to  deceive 
you  entirely,  and  fill  you  with  the  same  feeling  of 
admiration  that  is  awakened  by  any  striking  natural 
beauty.  The  old  French  notions  of  landscape  gar- 
dening seem  to  have  been  entirely  cast  aside.  The 
carriage  roads  and  paths  go  winding  about  'so  that 
the  view  is  constantly  changing,  and  the  trees  are 
allowed  to  grow  as  they  please,  without  being  tor- 
tured into  fantastic  shapes  by  the  pruning  knife.  The 
banks  of  the  lake  have  been  made  irregular,  now 
steep,  now  sloping  gently  to  the  water's  edge,  and  in 
some  places  huge  jagged  rocks  have  been  most  nat- 
urally worked  in,  while  ivy  has  been  planted  around 
them,  and  in  th'eir  crevices  those  weeds  and  shrubs 
which  commonly  grow  in  such  places.  You  would 
about  as  readily  take  Jamaica  Pond  to  be  artificial  as 
this  lovely  sheet  of  water  and  its  surroundings.  The 
Avenue  de  ITmperatrice  is  the  road  from  the  Arc  de 
Triomphe  to  the  Bois  de  Boulogne.  It  is  half  or 
three  quarters  of  a  mile  in  length,  and  is  destined  to 

CI45I1 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

be  one  of  the  most  striking  features  of  Paris.  It  is 
laid  out  with  spacious  grass  plots,  with  carriage  ways 
and  ways  for  equestrians  and  foot  passengers,  with 
regular  double  rows  of  trees  on  either  side.  Many 
elegant  chateau-like  private  residences  already  adorn 
it,  and  others  are  rapidly  rising.  An  idea  of  its 
majestic  appearance  may  be  had  from  the  fact  that 
its  entire  width  from  house  to  house  is  about  four 
hundred  feet.  The  large  space  around  the  Arc  de 
Triomphe  is  already  laid  out  in  a  square,  to  be  called 
the  Place  de  1'Europe,  and  the  work  has  already 
been  commenced  of  reducing  the  buildings  around  it 
to  symmetry.  The  Halles  Centrales,  the  great  cen- 
tral market-house  of  Paris,  has  just  been  opened  to 
the  public.  It  is  built  mainly  of  iron  and  glass.  As 
nearly  as  I  could  judge  of  its  size,  I  should  think  it 
would  leave  but  little  spare  room  if  it  were  placed  in 
Union  Park,  New  York.  It  is  about  a  hundred  feet 
in  height,  and  so  well  ventilated  that  it  is  hard  to 
realize  when  there  that  one  is  under  cover.  A  wide 
street  for  vehicles  runs  through  its  whole  length, 
crossed  by  others  at  equal  intervals.  I  have  called 
these  three  public  improvements  the  great  monu- 
ments of  the  reign  of  Napoleon  III.;  not  that  I 
would  limit  his  good  works  to  these,  but  because 
these  may  be  taken  as  conspicuous  illustrations  of  his 
care,  no  less  for  the  amusements  than  for  the  bodily 
wants  of  his  people,  and  of  his  zeal  for  the  promo- 
tion of  art  and  the  adornment  of  his  capital.  But 
these  noble  characteristics  of  the  Emperor  deserve 
something  more  than  a  mere  passing  notice,  and  may 
well  form  the  subject  of  my  next  letter. 


NAPOLEON   THE   THIRD1 

THERE  is  a  period  in  the  life  of  almost  every 
man  which  may  justly  be  termed  the  romantic 
period.  I  do  not  mean  the  time  when  a  youth,  whose 
heart  is  as  yet  unwarped  by  the  selfishness  of  the 
world,  and  his  brow  unclouded  by  its  trials  and  its 
sorrows,  thinks  that  the  performance  of  his  life  will 
fully  come  up  to  the  glowing  programme  he  then 
composes  for  it;  neither  do  I  refer  to  the  period 
when,  in  hungry  expectation,  we  clutched  eagerly  at 
the  booksellers'  announcements  of  the  last  produc- 
tions of  the  eloquent  Bulwer,  or  of  the  inexhaustible 
James.  But  I  refer  to  the  time  when  childhood  for- 
gets its  new  buttons  in  reading  how  poor  AH  Baba 
relieved  his  wants  at  the  expense  of  the  wicked 
thieves;  how  Whittington  heard  Bow  Bells  ring  out 
the  prophecy  of  his  greatness;  how  fierce  Blue  Beard 
punished  his  wife's  curiosity;  and  how  good  King 
Alfred  merited  reproof  by  his  forgetfulness  of  the 
herdsman's  supper.  This  is  the  true  period  of 

1  The  author  must  plead  guilty  to  a  little  hesitation  (induced  by  the 
present  aspect  of  European  affairs)  about  incorporating  this  paper  on 
the  French  Emperor,  written  some  three  years  since,  in  his  work.  He 
feels,  however,  that,  whatever  may  be  the  issue  of  the  present  contest  in 
Europe,  the  services  of  Napoleon  III.  to  France  and  to  civilization  are 
a  part  of  history ;  and  he  has  no  wish  to  disguise  his  satisfaction  at  hav- 
ing been  one  of  the  first  Americans  who  confronted  the  vulgar  prejudices 
of  his  countrymen  against  that  remarkable  man,  and  publicly  recognized 
the  wonderful  talents  which  have  placed  France  at  the  head  of  all  civil- 
ized nations. 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

romance  in  the  lives  of  all  of  us;  for  then  all  the 
romance  that  we  read  is  clothed  with  the  dignity  of 
history,  and  all  our  history  is  invested  with  the 
charm  of  romance.  This  happy  period  does  not  lose 
its  attractions,  even  when  we  outgrow  the  credulity 
of  childhood;  for  the  romance  of  history  captivates 
us  when  we  no  longer  are  subject  to  the  sway  of  the 
novelist;  and  we  leave  Mr.  Thackeray's  last  uncut, 
until  we  can  finish  a  newspaper  chapter  in  the  history 
of  these  momentous  times. 

We  know  how  eagerly  we  pursue  the  vicissitudes 
of  fortune  which  have  marked  the  career  of  so  many 
of  the  world's  heroes;  and  this  will  teach  us  how 
future  generations  will  read  the  history  of  the  pres- 
ent century.  Surely  the  whole  range  of  romance 
presents  no  parallel  to  the  simple  history  of  the  won- 
derful man  who  now  governs  France.  It  is  easy  to 
see  that  his  varied  fortunes  will  one  day  perform  a 
conspicuous  part  in  that  juvenile  classical  literature 
of  which  I  have  spoken ;  and  perhaps  it  may  not  be 
unprofitable,  dear  reader,  for  us  to  endeavour  to 
raise  ourselves  above  the  excitement  of  partisanship 
and  the  influences  of  old  prejudices,  and  look  upon 
his  career  as  may  the  writers  of  the  twenty-fifth  cen- 
tury. 

It  is  a  popular  error  in  America  t©  regard  Louis 
Napoleon  as  a  singular  combination  of  knavery  and 
half-wittedness.  Even  Mr.  Emerson,  in  his  English 
Traits,  so  far  forgets  the  kindliness  of  his  nature  as 
to  call  him  a  "successful  thief."  The  English  jour- 
nalists once  delighted  to  ridicule  him  as  the  "nephew 
of  his  uncle,"  and  the  shadow  of  a  great  name,  and 
Punch  used  to  represent  him  as  a  pygmy  standing 

[1483 


NAPOLEON  THE  THIRD 

upon  the  brim  of  his  uncle's  hat,  and  wondering  how 
he  could  ever  fill  it;  but  he  has  lived  down  ridicule, 
and  they  have  long  since  learned  that  there  is  such  a 
thing  as  the  possibility  of  a  mistake  in  judgment, 
even  among  journalists  and  politicians.  It  is  time 
that  we  Americans  got  over  a  notion  which  has  long 
since  been  exploded  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  I 
know  that  I  am  flying  in  the  face  of  those  who  believe 
in  the  plenary  inspiration  of  the  New  York  Tribune, 
when  I  claim  for  the  Emperor  any  thing  like  patriot- 
ism or  capacity  as  a  statesman.  I  know  that  the 
Greeleian,  "philanthropic"  code  exacts  that  we 
should  not  "give  the  prisoner  the  benefit  of  the 
doubt,"  and  that  when  any  one  whom  we  dislike  does 
any  good,  we  should  attribute  it  to  nothing  but  a 
selfish  or  ambitious  motive.  I  know  that  this  new- 
fangled love  of  all  mankind  requires  us  to  hate  those 
who  differ  from  us  politically,  and  never  to  lose  an 
opportunity  to  blacken  their  characters  and  diminish 
their  reputation;  and  therefore  I  make  all  due  allow- 
ances for  the  refusal  of  the  Tribune,  and  journals  of 
the  same  amiable  family,  to  see  the  truth.  In  April, 
1856,  I  was  waiting  for  a  train  in  a  way  station  on 
the  Worcester  Railroad.  A  sun-burned,  hard-work- 
ing man  was  reading  the  news  of  the  proclamation  of 
peace  at  Paris  from  a  penny  paper,  and  he  com- 
mented upon  it  to  two  or  three  others  who  were  pres- 
ent, as  follows:  "Well.  I  don't  know  how  'tis,  but  it 
seems  to  me  that  we've  been  most  almightily  mis- 
taken about  this  'ere  Lewis  Napoleon.  We  used  to 
think  he  was  a  shaller  kind  o'  feller  any  how,  but  it 
really  looks  now,  judging  from  the  position  of 
France  in  European  affairs,  as  if  he  was  turning  out 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

to  be  altogether  the  biggest  dog  in  that  tanyard!" 
The  old  fellow's  conclusion  was  a  true  one,  though 
his  rhetoric  would  not  have  been  commended  at 
Cambridge;  and  it  is  to  prevent  this  conclusion  forc- 
ing itself  upon  the  public  sense,  that  the  sym- 
pathizers with  socialism  have  been  labouring  ever 
since.  We  are  told  that  it  is  our  duty  as  Americans 
and  republicans  to  wish  for  the  overthrow  of  Na- 
poleon and  his  empire,  and  the  establishment  of  the 
republique  democratique  et  sociale.  Now,  having 
received  my  political  principles  from  another  source 
than  the  Tribune,  I  may  be  pardoned  for  having  a 
prejudice  in  favour  of  allowing  the  people  of  France 
to  govern  France;  and,  as  they  elected  Louis  Na- 
poleon President  in  1848  by  more  than  five  millions 
of  votes,  and  in  1851  chose  him  dictator  (in  their 
fear  of  the  very  party  which  the  Tribune  wishes  to 
see  in  power)  by  more  than  seven  millions  of  votes, 
and  finally,  in  1852,  made  him  their  Emperor  by  a 
vote  of  more  than  seven  millions  against  a  little  more 
than  three  hundred  thousand,  we  may  suppose 
France  to  have  expressed  a  pretty  decided  opinion 
on  this  matter.  The  French  empire  rests  upon  the 
very  principle  that  forms  the  basis  of  true  repub- 
licanism— universal  suffrage.  Louis  Napoleon  re- 
stored that  principle  after  it  had  been  suppressed  or 
restricted,  and  proved  himself  a  truer  republican 
than  his  opponents.  For  nine  years,  Napoleon  has 
been  sustained  by  the  people  of  France  with  a 
unanimity  such  as  the  United  States  never  knew,  ex- 
cept in  the  election  of  Washington  as  first  President, 
and  his  majority  has  increased  every  time  that  he  has 
appealed  to  the  people.  It  is  idle  to  say  that  there  are 


NAPOLEON  THE  THIRD 

parties  here  that  are  opposed  to  him;  it  would  be  a 
remarkable  phenomenon  if  there  were  not.  But 
there  is  a  more  united  support  here  for  the  Emperor 
than  there  is  in  our  own  country  for  the  constitution 
of  the  United  States,  and  any  right-minded  man 
would  regret  a  revolutionary  movement  in  one  coun- 
try as  much  as  in  the  other. 

If  there  was  ever  a  position  calculated  to  test  the 
capabilities  of  its  occupant,  it  was  that  in  which  Louis 
Napoleon  found  himself  when  he  obeyed  the  voice 
of  the  French  people,  and  accepted  the  presidency  of 
the  French  republic.  Surrounded  by  men  holding 
all  kinds  of  political  opinions,  from  the  agrarian 
Proudhon  to  the  impracticable  Louis  Blanc,  and  men 
of  no  political  opinions  whatever, — he  found  him- 
self obliged  to  use  all  the  power  reposed  in  him  by 
the  constitution,  to  keep  the  government  from  falling 
asunder.  History  bears  witness  to  the  fact  that  re- 
publican governments  deteriorate  more  rapidly  than 
those  which  are  based  upon  a  less  changeable  foun- 
dation than  the  popular  will.  But  there  was  little 
danger  of  the  French  republic  deteriorating,  for  it 
was  about  as  weak  and  unprincipled  as  it  could  be  in 
its  very  inception.  There  were  a  few  men  of  high 
and  patriotic  character  in  the  Assembly,  but  (as  is 
generally  the  case)  their  voices  were  drowned  amid 
the  clamourings  of  a  crowd  of  radical  journalists  and 
ambitious  litterateurs,  whose  only  bond  of  union  was 
a  fierce  hatred  of  law  and  religion,  and  a  desire  for 
the  spoils  of  office.  These  were  the  men  with  whom 
Napoleon  had  to  deal.  They  had  favoured  his  elec- 
tion to  the  presidency,  for,  in  their  misapprehension 
of  his  character,  they  thought  him  the  mere  shadow 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

of  a  name,  and  expected  under  his  government  to 
have  all  things  their  own  way.  But  they  were  not 
long  in  discovering  their  mistake. 

His  conduct  soon  showed  that  he  was  the  proper 
man  for  the  crisis.  That  unflinching  republican, 
General  Cavaignac,  had  before  pointed  out  the  dan- 
gers to  all  European  governments,  and  to  civilization 
itself,  that  would  spring  from  the  continuance  of  the 
sanguinary  and  sacrilegious  Roman  Republic;  and 
Napoleon,  accepting  his  suggestions,  took  immediate 
measures  to  put  an  end  to  the  atrocities  which 
marked  the  sway  of  Mazzini  and  his  assassins  in  the 
Roman  States.1  The  success  which  attended  these 
measures  is  now  a  part  of  history.  There  is  a  kind 
of  historical  justice  in  this  part  of  Napoleon's  career 
which  must  force  itself  upon  every  reflecting  mind. 
From  the  day  when  St.  Remy  told  his  royal  convert, 
Clovis,  to  "burn  what  he  had  adored,  and  adore 
what  he  had  burned,"  the  monarch  of  France  had 
always  been  considered  the  "eldest  son  of  the 
Church."  The  Roman  Pontiff  was  indebted  to  Pepin 
and  Charlemagne  for  those  possessions  which  ren- 
dered him  independent  of  the  secular  power.  In  the 

1  Lest  I  should  be  thought  guilty  of  speaking  rashly  with  regard  to  the 
anarchy  which  Napoleon  destroyed  in  1 849  at  Rome,  I  take  the  liberty  to 
transcribe  a  few  extracts  from  the  constitution  of  the  Society  of  "Young 
Italy,"  which  will  give  some  idea  of  the  principles  upon  which  the  Roman 
Republic  rested.  I  translate  from  the  edition  published  at  Naples,  by 
Benedetto  Cantalupo. 

*'  ARTICLE!.  The  Society  is  established  for  the  entire  destruction 
of  all  the  governments  of  the  peninsula,  and  for  the  forming  of  Italy  into 
a  single  state,  under  a  republican  government. 

«'  ART.  II.  In  consequence  of  the  evils  attendant  upon  absolute  gov- 
ernment, and  the  still  greater  evils  of  constitutional  monarchy,  we  ought 
to  join  all  our  efforts  to  establish  a  single  and  indivisible  republic. 

*'  ART.  XXX.     Those  members  who  shall  disobey  the  commands  of 


NAPOLEON  THE  THIRD 

hour  of  need  it  was  always  to  the  Kings  of  France 
that  he  looked  for  aid;  and  whether  he  sought  aid 
against  the  oppressors  of  the  Holy  See  or  the  infidel 
possessors  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  he  seldom  ap- 
pealed to  them  in  vain.  It  was  meet,  therefore,  that 
Napoleon  should  inaugurate  his  power  by  thus  re- 
viving the  ancient  traditionary  spirit  of  the  French 
monarchy;  for  he  could  not  better  prove  his  worthi- 
ness to  sit  on  the  throne  which  had  been  occupied  by 
so  many  generous  and  heroic  spirits,  than  by  fight- 
ing the  battles  of  the  Church  they  loved  so  well. 

The  foreign  and  domestic  policy  which  the  Prince- 
President  pursued  excited  at  the  same  time  the  anger 
of  the  ultra  republican  faction,  and  the  hopes  of  the 
religious  and  conservative  portion  of  society.  Order 
was  restored,  and  an  impetus  was  given  to  commer- 
cial enterprise  and  to  the  arts  of  peace  such  as  France 
had  not  known  since  the  outbreak  of  1848.  Still  the 
discordant  elements  of  which  the  Assembly  was  com- 
posed, were  a  just  cause  of  alarm  to  all  friends  of 
good  order,  and  all  parties,  conservative  and  radical, 

the  Society,  or  who  shall  reveal  its  mysteries,  shall  be  poniarded  without 
remission. 

"  ART.  XXXI.  The  secret  tribunal  shall  pronounce  sentence  in  such 
cases  as  the  preceding,  and  shall  designate  one  or  more  of  the  brethren 
to  carry  it  into  instant  execution. 

««  ART.  XXXII.  The  brother  who  shall  refuse  to  execute  a  sentence 
thus  pronounced  shall  be  considered  as  a  perjurer,  and  as  such  shall  be 
immediately  put  to  death. 

"ART.  XXXIII.  If  the  victim  condemned  to  punishment  should 
succeed  in  escaping,  he  shall  be  pursued  unremittingly  into  anyplace  what- 
ever, and  shall  be  struck  as  by  an  invisible  hand,  even  if  he  shall  have 
taken  refuge  on'the  bosom  of  his  mother,  or  in  the  tabernacle  of  Christ. 

"  ART.  XXXIV.  Each  secret  tribunal  shall  be  competent  not  only 
to  condemn  the  guilty  to  death,  but  also  to  put  to  death  all  persons  so 
sentenced." 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

regarded  the  existing  state  of  affairs  as  a  temporary 
one.  Napoleon  saw  that  the  only  obstacle  in  the 
path  of  the  nation  to  peace  and  prosperity  was  the 
Assembly — the  radicals  of  the  Assembly  that  the 
Prince-President  was  the  only  obstacle  to  their  plans 
of  disorganization  and  anarchy;  and  they  also  saw 
that,  if  the  question  were  allowed  to  go  to  the  people 
at  the  expiration  of  Napoleon's  term  of  office,  he 
would  surely  be  reflected,  and  that  his  policy  would 
be  triumphantly  confirmed.  So,  as  the  time  drew 
near  for  the  new  election,  the  struggle  between  the 
President  and  the  Assembly — between  order  and 
anarchy — grew  more  and  more  severe.  Plots  were 
formed  against  Napoleon,  and  were  just  ripening  for 
execution,  when,  on  the  second  of  December,  1851, 
he  terminated  the  suspense  of  the  nation  by  seizing 
and  throwing  into  prison  all  the  chief  conspirators 
against  the  public  peace,  and  then  appealed  to  the 
people  to  sustain  him  in  his  efforts  to  preserve  his 
country  from  the  state  of  anarchy  towards  which  it 
seemed  to  be  hastening.  The  people  answered 
promptly  and  with  good  will  to  the  call,  and  Na- 
poleon gained  an  almost  bloodless  victory. 

But  we  are  told  that  by  the  coup  d'etat,  "Napoleon 
violated  his  oath  to  sustain  the  constitution  of  the 
republic — that  he  is  a  perjurer,  and  all  his  success 
cannot  diminish  his  crime."  So  might  one  of  the  old 
loyalists  have  said  about  our  own  Washington.  "He 
was  a  British  subject — by  accepting  a  commission 
under  Braddock,  he  formally  acknowledged  his 
allegiance  to  the  crown — by  drawing  his  sword  in 
the  revolution,  he  violated  not  only  his  fidelity  as  a 
subject,  but  his  honour  as  a  soldier."  And  what 


NAPOLEON  THE  THIRD 

would  any  American  reply  to  this?  He  would  say 
that  Washington  never  bound  himself  to  violate  his 
conscience,  and  that  conscientiously  he  felt  bound  to 
defend  the  old  English  principles  of  free  govern- 
ment even  against  the  encroachments  of  his  own 
rightful  sovereign.  And  so,  with  equal  reason,  it 
may  be  said  of  Louis  Napoleon,  when  the  term  of 
his  presidency  was  approaching,  and  the  radical 
members  of  the  Assembly  were  forming  conspiracies 
to  dispose  of  him  so  as  to  prevent  his  reelection,  he 
was  bound  in  conscience,  as  the  chief  ruler  of  his 
country,  to  prevent  the  anarchy  that  must  result  from 
such  a  movement.  And  how  could  he  do  this  save  by 
dissolving  the  Assembly  and  appealing  to  the  people 
as  he  did?  The  constitution  was  nullified  by  the 
plots  of  the  Assembly,  and  France  in  1851  was  really 
without  a  government,  until  the  coup  d'etat  inaugu- 
rated the  present  reign  of  public  prosperity  and 
peace.  The  coup  d'etat  was  not  only  justifiable— it 
was  praiseworthy.  When  the  prejudices  and  party 
spirit  of  the  present  time  shall  have  passed  away,  the 
historian  will  grow  eloquent  in  speaking  of  that  fear- 
less and  far-sighted  statesman,  who,  when  his  coun- 
try was  threatened  with  a  repetition  of  the  civil  strife 
which  had  too  often  shaken  her  to  her  centre,  threw 
himself  boldly  upon  the  patriotism  of  the  people 
with  those  noble  words,  "The  Assembly,  instead  of 
being  what  it  ought  to  be,  the  support  of  public 
order,  has  become  a  nest  of  conspiracies.  It  com- 
promises the  peace  of  France.  I  have  dissolved  it; 
and  I  call  upon  the  whole  people  to  judge  between  it 
and  myself."— The  coup  d'etat  excited  the  anger 
only  of  the  socialists  and  of  those  partisans  of  the 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

houses  of  Bourbon  and  Orleans  who  loved  those 
families  more  than  they  loved  their  country's  wel- 
fare; for  they  saw,  by  the  revival  of  business,  that 
confidence  in  the  stability  of  the  government  was  es- 
tablished, and  that  Napoleon  had  obtained  a  place  in 
the  affections  of  the  French  people  from  which  he 
could  not  easily  be  dislodged. 

From  this  dictatorship,  which  the  dangers  of  the 
time  had  rendered  necessary,  it  was  an  easy  transi- 
tion to  the  empire,  and  Louis  Napoleon  found  his 
succession  to  the  throne  of  his  uncle  confirmed  by 
almost  the  unanimous  vote  of  the  French  people.  It 
was  a  tribute  to  the  man,  and  to  his  public  policy, 
such  as  no  ruler  in  modern  times  has  ever  received, 
and  for  unanimity  is  unparalleled  in  the  history  of 
popular  elections.  His  marriage  followed  quickly 
upon  the  proclamation  of  the  empire;  and  in 'this,  as 
in  all  his  acts,  we  can  discern  his  manly  and  inde- 
pendent spirit.  He  sought  not  to  ally  himself  with 
any  of  the  royal  families  of  Europe,  for  he  felt  him- 
self to  be  so  sure  of  his  position,  that  he  could  with- 
out risk  consult  his  affections  rather  than  policy  or 
ambition. 

The  skilful  diplomacy  which  led  to  the  alliance 
with  England,  the  campaign  in  the  Crimea,  and  the 
repulse  of  Russia,  are  too  fresh  in  every  body's  recol- 
lection to  bear  any  repetition.  So  far  as  they  concern 
Napoleon  III.,  the  world  is  a  witness  to  his  match- 
less coolness  and  determination.  What  could  be 
grander  than  the  heroic  inflexibility  he  displayed  in 
the  face  of  the  accumulated  disasters  of  that  cam- 
paign, and  the  murmurs  of  his  allies!  Misfortune 
only  seemed  to  nerve  him  to  more  vigorous  effort. 

CI563 


NAPOLEON  THE  THIRD 

During  that  terrible  winter  of  1854-5,  he  appeared 
more  like  a  fixed,  unvarying  law  of  nature  than  a 
man, — so  immovable  was  he  in  his  opposition  to 
those  who,  pressed  by  the  unlooked-for  difficulties  of 
the  time,  counselled  a  change  of  policy.  The  success- 
ful termination  of  the  siege  of  Sebastopol,  however, 
proved  the  justice  of  his  calculations,  and,  while  con- 
quering monarchs  in  other  times  have  been  content  to 
see  the  negotiations  for  peace  made  in  some  provin- 
cial town,  or  in  a  city  of  some  neutral  state,  the  proud 
satisfaction  was  conceded  to  him  by  Russia  of  having 
the  peace  conferences  held  in  his  own  capital. 

But  while  commemorating  the  success  of  his  efforts 
to  raise  his  country  to  a  commanding  position  among 
the  nations,  we  must  not  forget  the  great  enterprises 
of  internal  improvement  which  he  has  set  on  foot 
within  his  empire.  Who  can  recall  what  Paris  was 
under  Louis  Philippe,  or  the  time  of  the  republic, 
and  compare  it  with  the  Paris  of  to-day,  without  ad- 
miring the  genius  of  Napoleon  III.  ?  Who  does  not 
recognize  a  wonderful  capacity  for  the  administra- 
tion of  government  in  the  Emperor,  when  he  sees 
that  nearly  all  of  these  great  improvements  (unlike 
those  of  Louis  XIV.,  which  impoverished  the  na- 
tion) will  gradually  but  surely  pay  for  themselves  by 
increasing  the  amount  of  taxable  property?  Indeed, 
the  improvements  in  the  city  of  Paris  alone  are  on  so 
vast  a  scale  as  to  be  incomprehensible  to  any  one 
unacquainted  with  that  capital.  If  Napoleon  were 
to-day  to  fall  a  victim  to  that  organization  of  repub- 
lican assassins  which  is  known  to  exist  in  France,  as 
well  as  in  the  other  states  of  Europe,  he  would  leave, 
in  the  Louvre,  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  in  the  new 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

Boulevards,  and  the  extension  of  the  Rue  de  Rivoli, 
together  with  the  countless  other  public  works  which 
now  adorn  Paris,  testimonials  to  the  splendour  of 
his  brief  reign,  such  as  no  monarch  ever  left  before : 
of  him,  as  of  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  it  might  be  truly 
said,  "Si  qutzris  monumentum,  circumspice" 

But  we  must  not  think  that  Napoleon  has  confined 
his  exertions  to  the  improvement  of  Paris  alone. 
Not  a  single  province  of  his  empire  has  been  neg- 
lected by  him,  and  there  is  scarcely  a  town  that  has 
not  felt  the  influence  of  his  policy.  The  foreign 
commerce  of  France  has  been  wonderfully  increased 
by  him,  and  his  favourite  project  for  a  ship  canal 
through  the  Isthmus  of  Suez  is  now  numbered  among 
the  probabilities  of  the  age.  When  it  is  considered 
what  a  narrow  strip  of  land  separates  the  Red  Sea 
from  the  Mediterranean,  and  what  an  immense  ad- 
vantage such  a  canal  would  be  to  all  the  countries 
bordering  on  the  latter,  it  is  not  wonderful  that  Na- 
poleon should  find  so  many  friends  among  the 
sovereigns  of  Europe.  He  has  not  built  the  mag- 
nificent new  port  of  Marseilles  merely  for  the  ac- 
commodation of  the  Mediterranean  coasting  trade 
of  his  empire.  His  far-seeing  eye  looks  upon  those 
massive  quays  covered  with  merchandise  from  every 
quarter  of  the  Orient,  brought,  not  around  the 
stormy  Cape,  nor  by  the  toilsome  caravan  over  the 
parching  desert,  but  by  the  swift  steamers  of  the 
Messageries  Imperiales  from  every  port  of  India, 
through  the  waters  which,  centuries  ago,  rolled  back 
and  opened  a  path  of  safety  to  the  chosen  people  of 
God. 

If  the  old  proverb  be  true,  that  a  man  is  known  by 


NAPOLEON  THE  THIRD 

the  company  he  keeps,  it  is  equally  true,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  a  statesman  may  be  rightly  known  by  ex- 
amining the  character  of  his  opponents.  And  who 
are  the  opponents  of  Napoleon  III.?  With  the  ex- 
ception of  a  few  partisans  of  the  Bourbons,  (whose 
opposition  to  the  Napoleon  dynasty  is  an  hereditary 
complaint,)  they  are  radical  demagogues,  who  de- 
light to  mislead  the  fickle  multitude  with  the  words, 
"Liberty,  Equality,  and  Fraternity,"  on  their  lips, 
but  the  designs  of  anarchy  and  bloodshed  in  their 
hearts.  Their  ranks  are  swelled  by  a  number  of 
visionary  "philanthropists,"  and  a  large  number  of 
newspaper  scribblers  deprived  of  their  occupation  by 
Napoleon's  salutary  laws  against  abuse  of  the  liberty 
of  the  press,  and  lacking  ambition  to  earn  an  honest 
livelihood.  Among  them  may  be  found  a  few  liter- 
ary men  of  high  reputation,  who  have  espoused  some 
impracticable  theory  of  government,  and  would 
blindly  throw  away  their  well-earned  fame,  and  shed 
the  last  drop  of  their  ink  in  forcing  it  upon  an  unwill- 
ing nation. 

Slander,  like  Death,  loves  a  shining  mark.  The 
fact  cannot  be  doubted,  if  we  look  at  the  lives  of  the 
greatest  and  best  men  the  world  has  ever  seen.  In 
truth,  a  large  part  of  the  heroism  of  the  noblest 
patriots,  and  the  purest  philanthropists,  has  been 
created  by  the  necessity  they  have  been  under  to  bear 
up  against  the  obloquy  with  which  enmity  or  envy 
has  assailed  them.  The  Emperor  Napoleon  is,  be- 
yond a  doubt,  the  best  abused  man  in  Christendom. 
There  probably  never  existed  a  man  whose  every  act 
and  every  motive  have  been  more  studiously  mis- 
represented and  systematically  lied  about  than  his. 

1159-2 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

It  cannot  be  wondered  at,  either;  for  he  exercises  too 
much  power  in  the  state  councils  of  Europe,  and  fills 
too  large  a  space  in  the  public  eye,  not  to  be  assailed 
by  those  whose  evil  prophecies  have  been  falsified  by 
his  brilliant  reign,  and  whose  lawless  schemes  have 
been  frustrated  by  his  unexampled  prudence  and 
firmness. 

And  what  right  has  he  to  complain?  If  St.  Greg- 
ory VII.  were  obliged  to  submit  for  centuries  to 
being  represented  as  an  ambitious  self-seeker  and 
unscrupulous  politician,  instead  of  a  wise  and  far- 
seeing  pontiff,  a  vanquisher  of  tyrants,  and  a  self- 
denying  saint;  if  St.  Thomas  of  Canterbury  be  held 
up,  in  hundreds  of  volumes,  as  a  monster  of  ingrati- 
tude towards  a  beneficent  sovereign,  and  a  haughty 
and  overbearing  supporter  of  prelatical  tyranny,  in- 
stead of  a  martyr,  in  defence  of  religious  liberty 
against  the  encroachments  of  the  civil  authority;  if 
Cardinal  Wolsey  be  held  up  to  public  scorn  as  a 
proud  and  selfish  prince  of  the  Church,  a  glutton,  and 
a  wine-bibber,  instead  of  a  skilful  administrator  of 
government,  a  liberal  patron  of  learning,  and  all 
good  arts,  and  the  sole  restrainer  of  the  evil  passions 
of  the  most  shameless  tyrant  who  ever  sat  upon  the 
English  throne;  if  Cardinal  Richelieu  be  handed 
down  from  generation  to  generation,  painted  in  the 
blackest  colours,  as  a  scheming  politician,  in  whose 
heart,  wile  and  cruelty  were  mixed  up  in  equal  parts, 
instead  of  a  sagacious  and  inflexible  statesman,  and 
a  patriot  who  made  every  thing  (even  his  religion) 
bend  to  his  devotion  to  the  glory  of  his  beloved 
France;  if  these  great  men  have  been  thus  misrepre- 
sented in  that  history  which  DC  Maistre  aptly  calls 


NAPOLEON  THE  THIRD 

J'a  conspiracy  against  truth,"  I  do  not  think  that 
Napoleon  III.  can  reasonably  complain  of  finding 
himself  denounced  as  a  tyrant,  a  perjurer,  and  a  vic- 
tim of  all  the  bad  passions  that  vex  the  human  heart, 
instead  of  a  liberator  of  his  country  from  that  many- 
headed  monstrosity,  miscalled  the  Republique  Fran- 
gaise,  an  unswerving  supporter  of  the  cause  of  law 
and  religion,  and  the  architect  of  the  present  glory 
and  prosperity  of  France.  It  must  be  a  great  conso- 
lation to  the  Emperor,  under  the  slanders  which 
have  been  heaped  upon  him,  to  reflect  that  their 
authors  and  the  enemies  who  hate  him  worst,  are, 
for  the  most  part,  infidels  and  assassins,  and  enemies 
of  social  order.  Whatever  errors  a  man  may  com- 
mit, he  cannot  be  far  from  the  course  of  right  so  long 
as  he  is  hated  and  feared  by  people  of  that  desperate 
stamp.  The  ancient  adage  tells  us  that  "a  cat  may 
look  at  a  king";  and  it  is,  perhaps,  a  merciful  pro- 
vision of  the  law  of  compensation  that  the  base 
reptiles  which  fatten  on  the  offal  of  slander  are  per- 
mitted to  trail  their  slime  over  a  name  which  is  the 
synonyme  of  the  power  and  glory  of  France. 

When  the  prejudices  of  the  present  day  shall  have 
died  out,  the  historian  will  relate  how  devoted  Na- 
poleon III.  was  to  every  thing  that  concerned  his 
country's  welfare.  He  will  tell  of  his  ceaseless  care 
for  the  most  common  wants  of  his  people,  and  of  his 
vigilance  in  enforcing  laws  against  those  who 
wronged  the  poor  by  their  dishonest  dealings  in  the 
necessaries  of  life.  He  will  relate  how  promptly  he 
turned  his  back  upon  nobles  and  ambassadors  to  visit 
some  of  his  people  who  had  been  overwhelmed  by  a 
terrible  calamity,  and  will  describe  the  kind,  fatherly 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

manner  in  which  he  went  among  them,  carrying  suc- 
cour and  consolation  to  all.  He  will  not  compare  the 
Emperor  to  his  great  warrior-uncle;  he  will  contrast 
the  two.  He  will  show  how  the  uncle  made  all 
Europe  fear  and  hate  him,  and  how  the  nephew  con- 
verted his  enemies  into  allies ;  how  the  uncle  manured 
the  soil  of  Europe  with  the  bones  of  his  soldiers,  and 
the  nephew,  having  given  splendid  proofs  of  his 
ability  to  make  war,  won  for  himself  the  title  of  "the 
Pacificator  of  Europe" ;  how  the  uncle,  through  his 
hot-headed  ambition,  finally  made  France  the  prey  of 
a  hostile  alliance,  and  the  nephew  brought  the  repre- 
sentatives of  all  the  European  powers  around  him  in 
his  capital  to  make  peace  under  his  supervision. 

The  man  who,  after  thirty  years  of  exile  and  six 
years  of  close  imprisonment,  can  take  a  country  in 
the  chaotic  condition  in  which  France  found  itself 
after  the  revolution  of  1848,  and  reorganize  its  gov- 
ernment, place  its  financial  affairs  on  a  better  footing 
than  they  have  been  before  within  the  memory  of 
man,  double  its  commerce,  and  raise  it  to  the  highest 
place  among  the  states  of  Europe,  cannot  be  an  ordi- 
nary man.  In  1852,  the  Emperor  said,  "France,  in 
crowning  me,  crowns  herself;"  and  he  has  proved 
the  literal  truth  of  his  words.  He  has  given  France 
peace,  prosperity,  and  a  stable  government.  He  has 
imitated  Napoleon  I.  in  every  one  of  his  great  and 
praiseworthy  actions  in  his  civil  capacity,  while  he 
has  not  made  a  single  one  of  his  mistakes.  And  if 
"he  that  ruleth  his  own  spirit  is  greater  than  he  that 
taketh  a  city,"  this  remarkable  man,  whose  self-con- 
trol is  undisturbed  by  his  most  unparalleled  success, 
is  destined  to  be  known  in  history  as  Napoleon  the 
Great- 


NAPOLEON  THE  THIRD 

The  character  of  Napoleon  III.  is  marked  by  a 
unity  and  a  consistency  such  as  invariably  have  dis- 
tinguished the  greatest  men.  We  can  see  this  con- 
sistency in  his  fidelity  to  the  cause  of  law  and  order, 
whether  it  be  manifested  in  his  services  as  a  special 
constable  against  the  Chartists  of  England,  or  as  the 
chief  magistrate  of  his  nation  against  the  Chartists 
of  France.  And  to  this  conspicuous  virtue  of  stead- 
fastness he  adds  a  wonderful  universality  of  acquire- 
ments and  natural  genius.  We  see  him  contracting 
favourable  loans  and  averting  impending  dangers  in 
the  monetary  affairs  of  France,  and  it  would  seem  as 
if  his  early  life  had  been  spent  amid  the  clamours  of 
the  Bourse;  we  see  him  concentrating  troops  in  his 
capital  against  the  threats  of  the  revolutionists,  or 
designing  campaigns  against  the  greatest  military 
powers  of  Europe;  we  see  him  maintaining  a  perfect 
composure  in  the  midst  of  deadly  missiles  which  were 
expected  to  terminate  his  reign  and  dynasty,  and  it 
would  seem  as  if  the  camp  had  always  been  his  home, 
and  the  dangers  of  the  battle-field  his  familiar  asso- 
ciations; we  see  him  buying  up  grain  to  prevent 
speculators  from  oppressing  his  people  during  a  sea- 
son of  scarcity,  or  imprisoning  bakers  for  a  deficiency 
in  the  weight  of  their  loaves,  or  regulating  the  sales 
of  meats  and  vegetables,  — and  it  would  seem  as  if 
he  always  had  been  a  prudent  housekeeper  and  a  pro- 
found student  of  domestic  economy;  we  see  him  lay- 
ing out  parks,  projecting  new  streets  and  public 
buildings,  and  we  question  whether  he  has  paid  most 
attention  to  architecture,  engineering,  or  landscape- 
gardening;  we  see  him  visiting  his  subjects  when  they 
have  been  overwhelmed  by  a  great  calamity,  and  he 
would  seem  to  have  been  a  disciple  of  St.  Thomas 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

of  Villanueva,  or  of  St.  Vincent  of  Paul;  we  see  him 
taking  the  lead  amid  the  chief  statesmen  and  diplo- 
matists of  the  world,  we  read  his  powerful  state 
papers  and  speeches,  and  we  wonder  where  he  ac- 
quired his  experience ;  we  see  him,  in  short,  under  all 
circumstances,  and  it  appears  that  there  is  nothing 
that  concerns  his  country's  welfare  or  glory  too  diffi- 
cult for  him  to  grapple  with,  nor  any  thing  affecting 
the  happiness  of  his  poorest  subject  trivial  enough 
for  him  to  overlook.  By  his  advocacy  of  the  cause 
of  the  Church,  he  has  won  a  place  in  history  by  the 
side  of  Constantine  and  Charlemagne;  by  his  inter- 
nal policy  and  care  for  the  needs  of  his  subjects,  his 
name  deserves  to  be  inscribed  with  those  of  St.  Louis 
and  Alfred.  The  language  which  Bulwer  has  put 
into  the  mouth  of  Cardinal  Richelieu  might  be  used 
by  Napoleon  III.,  and  would  from  him  be  only  the 
language  of  historical  truth  :— 

"I  found  France  rent  asunder, 
Sloth  in  the  mart  and  schism  within  the  temple, 
Brawls  festering  to  rebellion,  and  weak  laws 
Rotting  away  with  rust —    *    *    *    * 
I  have  re-created  France,  and  from  the  ashes 
Civilization  on  her  luminous  wings 
Soars  phoenix-like  to  Jove!" 


THE   PHILOSOPHY  OF 
FOREIGN   TRAVEL 

FOREIGN  travel  is  one  of  the  most  useful 
branches  of  our  education,  but,  like  a  great 
many  other  useful  branches,  it  appears  to  be  "gone 
through  with"  by  many  persons  merely  as  a  matter 
of  course.  It  is  astonishing  how  few  people  out  of 
the  great  number  constantly  making  the  tour  of 
Europe  really  carry  home  any  thing  to  show  for  it 
except  photographs  and  laces.  Foreign  travel  ought 
to  rub  the  corners  off  a  man's  character,  and  give 
him  a  polish  such  as  "home-keeping  youth"  can  never 
acquire ;  yet  how  many  we  see  who  seem  to  have  in- 
creased their  natural  rudeness  and  inconsiderateness 
by  a  continental  trip !  Foreign  travel  ought  to  soften 
prejudices,  religious  or  political,  and  liberalize  a 
man's  mind;  but  how  many  there  are  who  seem  to 
have  travelled  for  the  purpose  of  getting  up  their 
rancour  against  all  that  is  opposed  to  their  notions, 
making  themselves  illustrations  of  Tom  Hood's  re- 
mark, that  "some  minds  resemble  copper  wire  or 
brass,  and  get  the  narrower  by  going  farther."  For- 
eign travel,  while  it  shows  a  man  more  clearly  the 
faults  of  his  own  country,  ought  to  make  him  love 
his  country  more  dearly  than  before;  yet  how  often 
does  it  have  the  effect  of  making  a  man  undervalue 
his  home  and  his  old  friends !  There  must  be  some 

11*653 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

general  reason  why  foreign  travel  produces  its  legiti- 
mate fruits  in  so  few  instances;  and  I  have,  during 
several  European  tours,  endeavoured  to  ascertain  it. 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  it  is  a  general  lack  of 
preparation  for  travel,  and  a  mistaken  notion  that 
"sight-seeing"  is  the  chief  end  of  travelling.  The 
expenses  of  the  passage  across  the  Atlantic  are  di- 
minishing every  year,  and  when  the  motive  power  in 
electricity  is  discovered  and  applied,  the  expense  of 
the  trip  will  be  a  mere  trifle;  and  in  view  of  these 
considerations,  I  feel  that,  though  I  might  find  a 
more  entertaining  subject  for  a  letter,  I  cannot  find  a 
more  instructive  one  than  the  philosophy  of  European 
travel. 

Concerning  the  expense  of  foreign  travel,  there 
are  many  erroneous  notions  afloat.  There  are  hun- 
dreds of  persons  in  America — artists,  and  students, 
and  persons  of  small  means— who  are  held  back 
from  what  is  to  them  a  land  of  promise,  by  the  mis- 
taken idea  that  it  is  expensive  to  travel  in  Europe. 
They  know  that  Bayard  Taylor  made  a  tour  on  an 
incredibly  small  sum,  and  they  think  that  they  have 
not  his  tact  in  management,  nor  his  self-denial  in 
regard  to  the  common  wants  of  life;  but  if  they  will 
put  aside  a  few  of  their  false  American  prejudices, 
they  will  find  that  they  can  travel  in  Europe  almost 
as  cheaply  as  they  can  live  at  home.  In  America,  we 
have  an  aristocracy  of  the  pocket,  which  is  far  more 
tyrannical,  and  much  less  respectable,  than  any  aris- 
tocracy of  blood  on  this  side  of  the  water;  for  every 
man  feels  an  instinctive  respect  for  another  who  can 
trace  his  lineage  back  to  some  brave  soldier  whose 
deeds  have  shone  in  his  country's  history  for  cen- 

D66I] 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  FOREIGN  TRAVEL 

turies;  but  it  requires  a  peculiarly  constituted  mind  to 
bow  down  to  a  man  whose  chief  claim  to  respect  is 
founded  in  the  fact  of  his  having  made  a  large  for- 
tune in  the  pork  or  dry  goods  line.  Jinkins  is  a  rich 
man;  he  lives  in  style,  and  fares  sumptuously  every 
day.  Jones  is  one  of  Jinkins's  neighbours;  he  is  not 
so  rich  as  Jinkins,  but  he  feels  a  natural  ambition  to 
keep  up  with  him  in  his  establishment,  and  he  does 
so;  the  rivalry  becomes  contagious,  and  the  conse- 
quence is,  that  a  score  of  well-meaning  people  find,  to 
their  dismay,  at  the  end  of  the  year,  that  they  have 
been  living  beyond  their  means.  Now,  if  people  wish 
to  travel  reasonably  in  Europe,  the  first  thing  that 
they  must  do  is  to  get  rid  of  the  Jones  and  Jinkins 
standard  of  respectability.  I  have  seen  many  people 
who  were  content  to  live  at  home  in  a  very  moderate 
sort  of  way,  who,  when  they  came  to  travel,  seemed 
to  require  all  the  style  and  luxury  of  a  foreign  prince. 
Such  people  may  go  all  over  Europe,  and  see  very 
little  of  it  except  the  merest  outside  crust.  They 
might  just  as  well  live  in  a  fashionable  hotel  in  Amer- 
ica, and  visit  Mr.  Sattler's  cosmoramas.  They  re- 
semble those  unfortunate  persons  who  have  studied 
the  classics  from  Anthon's  text-books— they  have  got 
a  general  notion,  but  of  the  mental  discipline  of  the 
study  they  are  entirely  ignorant.  But  let  me  go  into 
particulars  concerning  the  expenses  of  travelling.  I 
know  that  a  person  can  go  by  a  sailing  vessel  from 
Boston  to  Genoa,  spend  a  week  or  more  in  Genoa 
and  on  the  road  to  Florence,  pass  two  or  three  weeks 
in  that  delightful  city,  and  two  months  in  Rome,  then 
come  to  Paris,  and  stay  here  two  or  three  weeks, 
then  go  to  London  for  a  month  or  more,  and  home 

£167:1 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

by  way  of  Liverpool  in  a  steamer,  for  less  than  four 
hundred  dollars;  for  I  did  it  myself  several  years 
ago.  During  this  trip,  I  lived  and  travelled  respect- 
ably all  the  time — that  is,  what  is  called  respectably 
in  Europe.  I  went  in  the  second  class  cars,  and  in 
the  forward  cabins  of  the  steamers.  Jones  and 
Jinkins  went  in  the  first  class  cars  and  in  the  after 
cabins,  and  paid  a  good  deal  more  money  for  the 
same  pleasure  that  cost  me  so  little.  I  know,  too, 
that  a  person  can  sail  from  Boston  to  Liverpool, 
make  a  summer  trip  of  two  months  and  a  half  to 
Paris,  via  London  and  the  cities  of  Belgium,  and 
back  to  Boston  via  London  and  Liverpool,  for  a 
trifle  over  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars.  A  good 
room  in  London  can  be  got  for  two  dollars  and  a 
half  a  week,  in  Paris  for  eight  dollars  a  month,  in 
Rome  and  Florence  for  four  dollars  a  month,  and 
in  the  cities  of  Germany  for  very  considerably  less. 
And  a  good  dinner  costs  about  thirty  cents  in  Lon- 
don, thirty-five  in  Paris,  fifteen  to  twenty-five  in 
Florence  or  Rome,  and  even  less  in  Germany. 
Breakfast,  which  is  made  very  little  of  on  the  conti- 
nent, generally  damages  one's  exchequer  to  the  ex- 
tent of  five  to  ten  cents.  It  will  be  seen  from  this 
scale  of  prices  that  one  can  live  very  cheaply  if  he 
will;  and,  as  the  inhabitants  of  a  country  may  be  sup- 
posed to  know  the  requirements  of  its  climate  better 
than  strangers,  common  sense  would  dictate  the 
adoption  of  their  style  of  living. 

I  need  not  say  that  some  knowledge  of  the  French 
language  is  absolutely  indispensable  to  one  who 
would  travel  with  any  satisfaction  in  Europe.  This 
is  the  most  important  general  preparation  that  can 

£168  3 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  FOREIGN  TRAVEL 

be  made  for  going  abroad.  Next  after  it,  I  should 
place  a  review  of  the  history  of  the  countries  about 
to  be  visited.  The  outlines  of  the  history  of  the 
different  countries  of  Europe,  published  by  the  Eng- 
lish Society  for  the  Diffusion  of  Useful  Knowledge, 
are  admirably  adapted  to  this  purpose.  This  gives 
a  reality  to  the  scenes  you  are  about  to  visit  that  they 
would  not  otherwise  possess;  it  peoples  the  very 
roadside  for  you  with  heroes.  And  not  only  does  it 
impart  a  reality  to  your  travels,  but  history  itself 
becomes  a  reality  to  you,  instead  of  being  a  mere 
barren  record  of  events,  hard  to  be  remembered.  At 
this  time,  when  the  neglect  of  classical  studies  is 
apparent  in  almost  every  book,  newspaper,  and  mag- 
azine, I  am  afraid  that  I  shall  be  thought  somewhat 
old-fashioned  and  out  of  date,  if  I  say  that  some 
acquaintance  with  the  Latin  classics  is  necessary  be- 
fore a  man  can  really  enjoy  Italy.  Yet  it  is  so;  and 
it  will  be  a  great  satisfaction  to  any  man  to  find  that 
Horace  and  Virgil,  and  Cicero  and  Livy,  are  some- 
thing more  than  the  hard  tasks  of  childhood.  Should 
a  man's  classical  studies,  however,  be  weak,  the 
deficiency  can  be  made  up  in  some  measure  by  the 
judicious  use  of  translations,  and  by  Eustace's  Clas- 
sical Tour.  Murray's  admirable  hand-books  of 
course  will  supply  a  vast  amount  of  information;  but 
it  will  not  do  to  trust  to  reading  them  upon  the  spot. 
Some  preparation  must  be  made  beforehand, — some 
capital  is  necessary  to  start  in  business.  "If  you 
would  bring  home  the  wealth  of  the  Indies,  you  must 
carry  out  the  wealth  of  the  Indies."  It  would  be 
well,  too,  for  a  person  about  to  visit  Europe  to  pre- 
pare himself  for  a  quieter  life  than  he  has  been  lead- 

CI693 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

ing  at  home.  I  mean,  to  tone  himself  down  so  as  to 
be  able  to  enjoy  the  freedom  from  excitement  which 
awaits  him  here.  It  is  now  more  than  a  year  since  I 
left  America,  and  likewise  more  than  a  year  since  I 
have  seen  any  disorderly  conduct,  or  a  quarrel,  or 
even  have  heard  high  words  between  two  parties  in 
the  street,  or  have  known  of  an  alarm  of  fire.  In 
the  course  of  the  year,  too,  I  have  not  seen  half  a 
dozen  intoxicated  persons.  When  we  reflect  what  a, 
fruitful  source  of  excitement  all  these  things  are  in 
America,  it  will  be  easy  to  see  that  a  man  may  have, 
comparatively,  a  very  quiet  life  where  they  are  not 
to  be  found.  It  will  not  do  any  harm,  either,  to  pre- 
pare one's  self  by  assuming  a  little  more  considera- 
tion for  the  feelings  of  others  than  is  generally  seen 
among  us,  and  by  learning  to  address  servants  with 
a  little  less  of  the  imperious  manner  which  is  so  com- 
mon in  America.  Strange  as  it  may  seem,  there  is 
much  less  distinction  of  classes  on  the  continent,  than 
in  republican  America.  You  are  astonished  to  find 
the  broadcloth  coat  and  the  blouse  interchanging  the 
civilities  of  a  "light"  in  the  streets,  and  the  easy, 
familiar  way  of  servants  towards  their  masters  is  a 
source  of  great  surprise.  You  seldom  see  a  French- 
man or  an  Italian  receive  any  thing  from  a  servant 
without  thanking  him  for  it.  Yet  there  appears  to 
be  a  perfectly  good  understanding  between  all  par- 
ties as  to  their  relative  position,  and  with  all  their 
familiarity,  I  have  never  seen  a  servant  presume 
upon  the  good  nature  of  his  employer,  as  they  often 
do  with  us.  We  receive  our  social  habits  in  a  great 
measure  from  England,  and  therefore  we  have  got 
that  hard  old  English  way  of  treating  servants,  as  if 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  FOREIGN  TRAVEL 

our  object  was  to  make  them  feel  that  they  are  in- 
feriors. So  the  sooner  a  man  who  is  going  to  travel 
on  the  continent,  can  get  that  notion  out  of  his  head, 
and  replace  it  with  the  continental  one,  which  seems 
to  be,  that  a  servant,  so  long  as  he  is  faithful  in  the 
discharge  of  his  duties,  is  quite  as  respectable  a  mem- 
ber of  society  as  his  employer,  the  better  it  will  be 
for  him,  and  the  pleasanter  will  be  his  sojourn  in 
Europe. 

One  of  the  first  mistakes  Americans  generally 
make  in  leaving  for  Europe  is,  to  take  too  much 
luggage.  Presupposing  a  sufficiency  of  under-cloth- 
ing, all  that  any  person  really  needs  is  a  good,  sub- 
stantial travelling  suit,  and  a  suit  of  black,  including 
a  black  dress  coat,  which  is  indispensable  for  all  oc- 
casions of  ceremony.  The  Sistine  Chapel  is  closed  to 
frock  coats,  and  so  is  the  Opera — and  as  for  evening 
parties,  a  man  might  as  well  go  in  a  roundabout  as 
in  any  thing  but  a  dress  coat.  Clothing  is  at  least  one 
third  cheaper  in  Europe  than  it  is  with  us,  and  any 
deficiency  can  be  supplied  with  ease,  without  carrying 
a  large  wardrobe  around  with  one,  and  paying  the 
charges  for  extra  luggage  exacted  by  the  continental 
railways. 

Let  us  now  suppose  a  person  to  have  got  fairly  off, 
having  read  up  his  classics  and  his  history,  and  got 
his  luggage  into  a  single  good-sized  valise,— let  us 
suppose  him  to  have  got  over  the  few  days  of  seasick- 
ness, which  made  him  wish  that  Europe  had  been 
submerged  by  the  broad  ocean  (as  Mr.  Choate 
would  say)  or  ever  he  had  left  his  native  land,— and 
to  have  passed  those  few  pleasant  days,  which  every 
one  remembers  in  his  Atlantic  passage,  when  the  ship 

£1713 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

was  literally  getting  along  "by  degrees"  on  her 
course, — and  to  have  arrived  safely  in  some  Eu- 
ropean port.  The  custom  house  officers  commence 
the  examination  of  the  luggage,  looking  especially 
for  tobacco ;  and  if  our  friend  is  a  wise  man,  he  will 
not  attempt  to  bribe  the  officers,  as  in  nine  cases  out 
of  ten  he  will  increase  his  difficulties  by  so  doing,  and 
cause  his  effects  to  be  examined  with  double  care ;  but 
he  will  open  his  trunk,  and,  if  he  have  any  cigars, 
will  show  them  to  the  examiner,  and  if  he  have  not, 
he  will  undoubtedly  be  told  to  close  it  again,  and  will 
soon  be  on  his  way  to  his  hotel.  I  suppose  him  to 
have  selected  a  hotel  before  arriving  in  port— which 
would  be  done  by  carefully  avoiding  those  houses 
which  make  a  great  show,  or  are  highly  commended 
in  Murray's  guide-books.  He  will  find  a  neat,  quiet 
European  hotel  a  delightful  place,  after  the  gilding 
and  red  velvet  of  the  great  caravanseries  of  his  na- 
tive country.  If  he  is  going  to  stop  more  than  a 
single  night,  he  will  ask  the  price  of  the  room  to 
which  he  is  shown,  and  if  it  seems  too  expensive,  will 
look  until  he  finds  one  that  suits  him.  When  he  has 
selected  a  room,  and  his  valise  has  been  brought  up, 
he  will  probably  observe  that  the  servant  (if  it  is 
evening)  has  lighted  both  of  the  candles  on  the 
mantel-piece.  He  will  immediately  blow  one  of  them 
out  and  hand  it  to  the  waiter,  with  a  look  that  will 
show  him  that  he  is  dealing  with  an  experienced 
traveller,  who  knows  that  he  has  to  pay  for  can- 
dles as  he  burns  them.  When  he  leaves  the  hotel, 
he  will  make  it  a  principle  always  to  carry  the  uncon- 
sumed  candle  or  candles  with  him,  for  use  as  occa- 
sion may  require ;  for  it  is  the  custom  of  the  country, 

£172] 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  FOREIGN  TRAVEL 

and  will  secure  him  against  the  little  impositions 
which  are  always  considered  fair  play  upon  outsiders. 
It  is  possible  that  he  will  find,  when  he  goes  to  wash 
his  hands,  that  there  is  no  soap  in  the  wash  stand, 
and  will  thank  me  for  having  reminded  him  to  carry 
a  cake  with  him  rolled  up  in  a  bit  of  oiled  silk.  When 
he  wishes  to  take  lodgings  in  any  city,  he  will  be 
particular  to  avoid  that  part  of  the  town  where  Eng- 
lish people  mostly  do  inhabit,  and  will  be  very  shy  of 
houses  where  apartments  to  let  are  advertised  on  a 
placard  in  phrases  which  the  originator  probably  in- 
tended for  English.  He  will  look  thoroughly  before 
he  decides,  and  so  will  save  himself  a  great  deal  of 
dissatisfaction  which  he  might  feel  on  finding  after- 
wards that  others  had  done  much  better  than  he. 
Besides,  "room-hunting"  is  not  the  least  profitable, 
nor  least  amusing  part  of  a  traveller's  experience. 
He  will,  when  settled  in  his  rooms,  attend  in  person 
to  the  purchase  of  his  candles  and  his  fuel,  and  to  the 
delivery  of  the  same  in  his  apartments;  for  by  so 
doing  he  will  save  money,  and  will  see  more  of  the 
common  people  of  the  place. 

Of  course  he  will  see  all  the  "sights"  that  every 
stranger  is  under  a  sort  of  moral  obligation  to  see, 
however  much  it  may  fatigue  him;  but  he  must  not 
stop  there.  He  must  not  think,  as  so  many  appear 
to,  that,  when  he  has  seen  the  palaces,  and  picture 
galleries,  and  gardens,  and  public  monuments  of  a 
country,  he  knows  that  country.  He  must  try  to  see 
and  know  as  much  as  he  can  of  the  people  of  the 
country,  for  they  (Louis  Quatorze  to  the  contrary, 
notwithstanding)  are  the  state.  Let  him  cultivate 
the  habit  of  early  rising,  and  frequent  market  places 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

and  old  parish  churches  in  the  twilight  of  the  morn- 
ing, and  he  will  learn  more  of  the  people  in  one 
month  than  a  year  of  reading  or  ordinary  sight-see- 
ing could  teach  him.  Let  him  choose  back  alleys, 
instead  of  cro'wded  and  fashionable  thoroughfares 
for  his  walks;  when  he  falls  in  with  a  wandering 
musician  and  juggler,  exhibiting  in  public,  let  him 
stop,  not  to  see  the  exhibition,  but  the  spectators; 
when  he  goes  to  the  theatre,  let  him  not  shut  himself 
up  in  the  privacy  of  a  box,  but  go  into  the  pit,  where 
all  he  will  see  and  hear  around  him  will  be  full  as 
amusing  as  the  performance  itself;  and  when  he  uses 
an  omnibus,  let  him  always  choose  a  seat  by  the 
driver,  in  preference  to  one  inside.  I  have  learnt 
more  of  the  religious  character  of  the  poorer  class  in 
Paris,  by  a  visit  to  a  little  out-of-the-way  church  at 
sunrise,  than  could  be  acquired  by  hours  of  conversa- 
tion with  the  people  themselves.  And  I  have  learned 
equally  as  much  of  the  brutality  and  degradation  of 
the  same  class  in  England,  by  going  into  a  gin-shop 
late  at  night,  calling  for  a  glass  of  ale,  and  drinking 
it  slowly,  while  I  was  inspecting  the  company. 
There  is  many  a  man  who  travels  through  Europe, 
communicating  only  with  hotel  keepers,  couriers,  and 
ciceroni,  and  learning  less  of  the  people  than  he 
could  by  walking  into  a  market-place  alone,  and  buy- 
ing a  sixpence  worth  of  fruit.  Yet  such  men  presume 
to  write  books,  and  treat  not  merely  of  the  govern- 
ments of  these  countries,  but  of  the  social  condition 
of  the  people !  I  once  met  a  man  in  Italy,  who  could 
not  order  his  breakfast  correctly  in  Italian,  who 
knew  only  one  Italian,  and  he  was  the  waiter  who 
served  him  in  a  restaurant;  and  yet  this  man  was  a 

D74:] 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  FOREIGN  TRAVEL 

correspondent  of  a  respectable  paper  in  Boston,  and 
had  the  effrontery  to  write  column  after  column  upon 
Italian  social  life,  and  to  speak  of  political  affairs  as 
if  he  were  Cardinal  Antonelli's  sole  confidant.  There 
are  such  people  here  in  Paris  now,  who  send  over  to 
America,  weekly,  batches  of  falsehood  about  the 
household  of  the  Tuileries,  which  the  intelligent  pub- 
lic of  America  accepts  as  being  true ;  for  it  seems  to 
be  a  part  of  some  people's  republicanism  to  believe 
nothing  but  evil  of  a  ruler  who  wears  a  crown.  I 
need  not  say  in  this  connection,  that  the  traveller  who 
wishes  to  enjoy  Europe  must  put  away  the  habit  (if 
he  be  so  unfortunate  as  to  have  it)  of  looking  upon 
every  thing  through  the  green  spectacles  of  repub- 
licanism, and  regarding  that  form  of  government  as 
the  only  one  calculated  to  benefit  mankind.  He  must 
remember  that  the  government  of  his  own  country  is 
a  mere  experiment,  compared  with  the  old  monarchies 
of  Europe,  and  he  must  try  to  judge  impartially  be- 
tween them.  He  must  judge  each  system  by  its  re- 
sults, and  if  on  comparison  he  finds  that  there  is  really 
less  slavery  in  his  own  country  than  in  Europe ;  that 
the  government  is  administered  more  impartially; 
that  the  judiciary  is  purer;  that  there  is  less  of  mob 
law  and  violence,  and  less  of  political  bargaining  and 
trickery,  and  that  life  and  property  are  more  secure 
in  his  own  country  than  they  are  here, — why,  he  will 
return  to  America  a  better  republican  than  before, 
from  the  very  fact  of  having  done  justice  to  the  gov- 
ernments of  Europe. 

As  I  have  before  said,  it  is  better  for  a  traveller  to 
endeavour  to  live  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the  manner 
of  the  inhabitants  of  the  country  in  which  he  is  so- 

£175:1 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

journing.  I  do  not  mean  that  he  should  feel  bound 
to  make  as  general  a  use  of  garlic  as  some  of  the 
people  of  Europe  do,  for  in  some  places  I  verily 
believe  that  a  custard  or  a  blanc  mange  would  be 
thought  imperfect  if  they  were  not  seasoned  with 
that  savory  vegetable;  but,  ceteris  being  paribus,  if 
the  general  manner  of  living  were  followed,  the  trav- 
eller would  find  it  conducive  to  health  and  to  econ- 
omy. The  habits  of  life  among  every  people  are  not 
founded  on  a  mere  caprice;  and  experience  proves 
that  under  the  warm  sun  of  Italy,  a  light  vegetable 
diet  is  healthier  and  more  really  invigorating  than 
all  the  roast  beef  of  Old  England  would  be. 

In  Europe,  no  man  is  ever  ashamed  of  economy. 
Few  Englishmen  even  shrink  from  acknowledging 
that  they  cannot  afford  to  do  this  or  that,  and  on  the 
continent  profuseness  in  the  use  of  money  is  consid- 
ered the  sure  mark  of  a  parvenu.  Every  man  is  free 
to  do  as  he  pleases;  he  can  travel  in  the  first,  second, 
or  third  class  on  the  railways,  and  not  excite  the  sur- 
prise of  any  body;  and  whatever  class  he  may  be  in, 
he  will  be  treated  with  equal  respect  by  all.  It  is  well 
to  bear  this  in  mind,  for,  taken  in  connection  with  the 
principle  of  paying  for  one's  room  and  meals  sepa- 
rately according  to  what  one  has,  it  puts  it  within 
one's  power  to  travel  all  over  Europe  for  a  ridicu- 
lously small  sum.  You  can  live  in  Paris,  by  going 
over  into  the  Latin  quarter,  on  thirty  cents  a  day, 
and  be  treated  by  every  body,  except  your  own  coun- 
trymen, with  as  much  consideration  as  if  you  abode 
among  the  mirrors  and  gilding  of  the  Hotel  de 
Louvre.  Not  that  I  would  advise  any  one  to  go 
over  there  for  the  sake  of  saving  money,  and  live  on 


salads  and  meats  in  which  it  is  difficult  to  have  con- 
fidence, when  he  can  afford  to  do  better.  I  only  wish 
to  encourage  those  who  are  kept  from  visiting  Eu- 
rope by  the  idea  that  it  requires  a  great  outlay  of 
money.  You  can  live  in  Europe  for  just  what  you 
choose  to  spend,  and  in  a  style  of  independence  to 
which  America  is  a  total  stranger.  Every  body  does 
not  know  here  what  every  body  else  has  for  dinner. 
You  may  live  on  the  same  floor  with  a  man  for 
months  and  years,  and  not  know  any  more  of  him 
than  can  be  learned  from  a  semi-occasional  meeting 
on  the  staircase,  and  an  interchange  of  hat  civilities. 
This  seems  so  common  to  a  Frenchman,  that  it  would 
be  considered  by  him  hardly  worth  notice ;  but  to  any 
one  who  knows  what  a  sharp  look-out  neighbours 
keep  over  each  other  in  America,  it  is  a  most  pleasing 
phenomenon.  It  is  indeed  a  delightful  thing  to  live 
among  people  who  have  formed  a  habit  of  minding 
their  own  business,  and  at  the  same  time  have  a  spirit 
of  consideration  for  the  rights  and  feelings  of  their 
neighbours. 

If,  in  the  above  hints  concerning  the  way  to  travel 
pleasantly  and  cheaply  in  Europe,  I  have  succeeded 
in  removing  any  of  the  bugbear  obstacles  which  hold 
back  so  many  from  the  great  advantages  they  might 
here  enjoy,  I  shall  feel  that  I  have  not  tasked  my 
poor  eyes  and  brain  for  nothing.  We  are  a  long 
way  behind  Europe  in  many  things,  and  it  is  only  by 
frequent  communication  that  we  can  make  up  our 
deficiencies.  It  cannot  be  done  by  boasting,  nor  by 
claiming  for  America  all  the  enterprise  and  enlight- 
enment of  the  nineteenth  century.  Neither  can  it  be 
done  by  setting  up  the  United  States  as  superior  to 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

every  historical  precedent,  and  an  exception  to  every 
rule.  Most  men  (as  the  old  French  writer  says)  are 
mortal;  and  we  Americans  shall  find  that  our  coun- 
try, with  all  its  prosperity  and  unequalled  progress, 
is  subject  to  the  same  vicissitudes  as  the  countries  we 
now  think  we  can  afford  to  despise ;  and  that  our  his- 
tory is 

but  the  same  rehearsal  of  the  past — 


First  Freedom,  and  then  Glory;  when  that  fails, 
Wealth,  vice,  corruption, — barbarism  at  last." 

No,  we  cannot  safely  scorn  the  lesson  which 
Europe  teaches  us;  for  if  we  do,  we  shall  have  to 
learn  it  at  the  expense  of  much  adversity  and  wound- 
ing of  our  pride.  Every  American  who  comes 
abroad,  if  he  knows  how  to  travel,  ought  to  carry 
home  with  him  a  new  idea  of  the  amenities  of  life, 
and  of  moderation  in  the  pursuit  and  the  use  of 
wealth,  such  as  will  make  itself  felt  in  the  course  of 
time,  and  make  the  fast  living  and  recklessness  of 
authority  and  tendency  to  bankruptcy  of  the  present 
day,  give  way  to  a  spirit  of  moderation  and  obedience 
to  law  such  as  always  produces  private  prosperity 
and  public  stability. 


PARIS  TO   BOULOGNE 

IT  was  a  delicious  morning  when  I  packed  my  trunk 
to  leave  Paris.  Indeed  it  was  so  bright  and 
cloudless  that  it  seemed  wrong  to  go  away  and  leave 
so  fine  a  combination  of  perfections.  It  was  more 
than  the  "bridal  of  the  earth  and  sky";  it  was  the 
bridal  of  all  the  created  beings  around  one  and  their 
works  with  the  sky.  The  deep  blue  of  the  heavens, 
the  glittering  sunbeams,  the  clean  streets,  the  fair 
house  fronts,  the  gay  shop  windows,  the  white  caps, 
and  shining  morning  faces  of  the  bonnes  and  market 
women,  the  busy,  prosperous  look  of  the  passers  by, 
were  all  blended  together  in  one  harmonious  whole, 
more  touching  and  poetical  than  any  scene  of  mere 
natural  beauty  that  the  dewy  morn,  "with  breath  all 
incense  and  with  cheek  all  bloom,"  ever  looked  upon. 
"Earth  hath  not  any  thing  to  show  more  fair." 
Others  may  delight  in  communing  with  solitary  na- 
ture, and  may  rave  in  rhyme  about  the  glories  of 
woods,  lakes,  mountains,  and  Ausonian  skies;  but 
what  is  all  that  compared  to  the  awakening  of  a  great 
city  to  the  life  of  day?  What  are  the  floods  of 
golden  light  that  every  morning  bathe  the  mountain 
tops,  and  are  poured  down  into  the  valleys  and  fields 
below,  compared  to  the  playing  of  the  sunbeams  in 
the  smoke  from  ten  thousand  chimneys,  and  the  din 
of  toil  displacing  the  silence  of  night?  I  have  seen 
the  sunsets  of  the  Archipelago— I  have  seen  Lesbos 

D79] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

and  Egina  clad  in  those  robes  of  purple  and  gold, 
which  till  then  I  had  thought  were  a  mere  figment  of 
the  painter's  brain — I  have  enjoyed  that  "hush  of 
world's  expectation  as  day  died" — I  have  often 
drunk  in  the  glory  of  a  cloudless  sunrise  on  the  At- 
lantic, and  even  now  my  heart  leaps  up  at  the  remem- 
brance of  it ;  but  after  all,  commend  me  to  the  deeper 
and  more  sympathetic  feelings  inspired  by  the  dingy 
walls  and  ungraceful  chimney-pots  of  a  metropolis. 
Thousands  of  human  hearts  are  there,  throbbing 
with  hope,  or  joy,  or  sorrow, — weighed  down  per- 
chance by  guilt;  and  humanity  with  all  its  imperfec- 
tions is  a  noble  thing.  A  single  human  heart,  though 
erring,  is  a  grander  creation  than  the  Alps  or  the 
Andes,  for  it  shall  outlive  them.  It  is  moved  by  aspi- 
rations that  outrun  the  universe,  and  possesses  a 
destiny  that  shall  outlive  the  stars.  It  is  the  better 
side  of  human  nature  that  we  see  in  the  early  morn- 
ing in  large  cities.  Vice  flourishes  best  under  the 
glare  of  gas-lights,  and  does  not  salute  the  rising  sun. 
The  bloated  form,  the  sunken  eye,  the  painted  cheek, 
shrink  from  that  which  would  make  their  deformity 
more  hideous,  and  hide  themselves  in  places  which 
their  presence  makes  almost  pestilential.  Honest, 
healthful  labour  meets  us  at  every  step,  and  imparts 
to  us  something  of  its  own  hopefulness  and  activity. 
We  miss  the  dew-drops  glittering  like  jewels  in  the 
grass,  but  the  loss  is  more  than  made  up  to  us  by  the 
bright  eyes  of  happy  children,  helping  their  parents 
in  their  work,  or  sporting  together  on  their  way  to 
school. 

There  was  a  time  when  I 'thought  it  very  poetical 
to  roam  the  broad  fields  in  that  still  hour  when  the 


PARIS  TO  BOULOGNE 

golden  light  seems  to  clasp  every  object  that  it  meets, 
as  if  it  loved  it;  but  of  late  years  a  comfortable  side- 
walk has  been  more  suggestive  of  poetry  and  less 
productive  of  wet  feet.  Give  me  a  level  pavement 
before  all  your  groves  and  fields.  The  only  rus  that 
wears  well  in  the  long  run  is  Russ  in  urbe.  Nine 
tenths  of  all  the  fine  things  in  our  literature  concern- 
ing the  charms  of  country  life,  have  been  written,  not 
beneath  the  shade  of  overarching  boughs,  but  within 
the  crowded  city's  smoke-stained  walls.  Depend 
upon  it,  Shakespeare  could  never  have  written  about 
the  moonlight  sleeping  on  the  bank  any  where  but  in 
the  city;  had  the  realities  of  country  life  been  present 
to  him,  he  would  have  rejected  any  such  metaphor, 
for  he  loved  the  moonlight  too  dearly  to  subject  it  to 
the  rheumatic  attack  that  would  inevitably  have 
followed  such  a  nap  as  that.  It  is  with  country  life 
very  much  as  it  is  with  life  at  sea.  Mr.  Choate,  who 
pours  out  his  noblest  eloquence  on  the  glories  and 
romance  of  the  sea,  seldom  sees  the  outside  of  his 
state-room  while  he  is  out  of  sight  of  land,  and  all  his 
glowing  periods  are  forgotten  in  the  realities  of  his 
position.  So,  too,  the  man  who  wishes  to  destroy 
the  poetry  and  romance  of  country  life,  has  only  to 
walk  about  in  the  wet  grass  or  the  scorching  heat,  or 
to  be  obliged  to  pick  the  pebbles  out  of  his  shoes,  or 
a  caterpillar  off  his  neck,  or  to  be  mocked  at  by  un- 
ruly cattle,  or  pestered  by  any  of  the  myriads  of 
insect  and  reptiles  which  abound  in  every  well-regu- 
lated country. 

The  excellent  Madame  Busque  (la  dame  aux 
pumpkin  pies}  had  prepared  for  me  a  viaticum  in 
the  shape  of  a  small  loaf  of  as  good  gingerbread  as 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

was  ever  made  west  of  Cape  Cod— a  motherly  atten- 
tion quite  in  keeping  with  her  ordinary  way  of  taking 
care  of  her  customers.  All  who  frequent  the  creme- 
rie  are  her  en  fans,  and  if  she  does  not  show  them 
every  little  maternal  attention,  and  tie  a  bib  upon 
every  one's  neck,  it  is  only  that  we  may  know  better 
how  to  behave  when  we  are  beyond  the  reach  of  her 
kindly  hand.  Fortified  with  the  gingerbread,  I  found 
myself  whirling  out  of  the  terminus  of  the  Northern 
Railway,  and  Paris,  with  its  far-stretching  fortifica- 
tions, its  domes  and  towers,  and  its  windmill-crowned 
Montmartre,  was  soon  out  of  sight. 

The  train  was  very  full,  and  the  weather  very 
warm.  Two  of  my  car-companions  afforded  me  a 
good  deal  of  amusement.  They  were  a  fat  German 
and  his  wife.  He  was  one  of  the  jolliest  old  gentle- 
men I  ever  had  the  good  fortune  to  travel  with.  His 
silvery  hair  was  cropped  close  to  his  head,  and  he 
rode  along  with  his  cuffs  turned  up  and  his  waistcoat 
open.  He  seemed  to  feel  that  he  was  occupying  a 
good  deal  of  room;  but  he  was  the  only  one  there 
who  felt  it.  No  one  of  us  would  have  had  his  circum- 
ference reduced  an  inch,  but  we  should  all  of  us  have 
delighted  to  put  a  thin  man  who  was  there  out  by  the 
roadside.  His  wife— a  bright-eyed  little  woman, 
whose  hair  was  just  getting  a  little  silvery— had  a 
small  box-cage  in  which  she  carried  a  large,  intelli- 
gent-looking parrot.  Before  we  had  gone  very  far, 
the  bird  began  to  carry  on  an  animated  conversation 
with  its  mistress,  but  finally  disgusted  her  and  sur- 
prised us  all  by  swearing  in  French  and  German  at 
the  whole  company,  with  all  the  vehemence  of  a  regi- 
ment of  troopers.  The  lady  tried  hard  to  stop  him, 


PARIS  TO  BOULOGNE 

but  it  was  useless.  The  old  gentleman  (like  a  great 
many  good  people  who  would  not  swear  themselves, 
but  rather  like  to  hear  a  good  round  oath  occa- 
sionally) seemed  to  enjoy  it  intensely,  and  laughed 
till  the  tears  rolled  down  his  cheeks.  At  noon  the 
worthy  pair  made  solemn  preparations  for  a  dinner. 
A  basket,  a  carpet-bag,  and  sundry  paper  parcels 
were  brought  out.  The  lady  spread  a  large  checked 
handkerchief  over  their  laps  for  a  table  cloth,  and 
then  produced  a  staff  of  life  about  two  feet  in  length, 
and  cut  off  a  good  thick  slice  for  each  of  them. 
Cheese  was  added  to  it,  and  also  a  species  of  sausage 
about  a  foot  in  length,  and  three  inches  in  diameter. 
From  these  they  made  a  comfortable  meal — not  eat- 
ing by  stealth,  as  we  Americans  should  have  done— 
but  diving  in  heartily,  and  chatting  together  all  the 
while  as  cosily  as  if  they  had  been  at  home.  A  bottle 
of  wine  was  then  brought  out  from  the  magic  carpet- 
bag, and  a  glass,  also  a  nice  dessert  of  peaches  and 
grapes.  There  was  a  charming  at-home-ativeness 
about  the  whole  proceeding  that  contrasted  strongly 
with  our  American  way  of  doing  such  things,  and  all 
the  other  passengers  apparently  took  no  notice  of  it. 
We  arrived  at  Boulogne  in  the  midst  of  a  storm 
is  severe  as  the  morning  had  been  serene.  So  fair 
and  foul  a  day  I  have  not  seen.  An  omnibus  whisked 
me  to  a  hotel  in  what  my  venerable  grandmother 
used  to  call  a  jiffy,  and  I  was  at  once  independent  of 
the  weather's  caprices.  A  comfortable  dinner  at  the 
table  d'hote  repaired  the  damages  of  the  journey, 
and  I  spent  the  evening  with  some  good  friends, 
whose  company  was  made  the  more  delightful  by 
the  months  that  had  separated  us.  The  storm  raged 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

without,  and  we  chatted  within.  The  old  hotel 
creaked  and  sighed  as  the  blast  assailed  it,  and  I 
dreamed  all  night  of  close-reefed  topsails. 

"'Tis  a  wild  night  out  of  doors; 
The  wind  is  mad  upon  the  moors, 
And  comes  into  the  rocking  town, 
Stabbing  all  things  up  and  down: 
And  then  there  is  a  weeping  rain 
Huddling  'gainst  the  window  pane ; 
And  good  men  bless  themselves  in  bed ; 
The  mother  brings  her  infant's  head 
Closer  with  a  joy  like  tears, 
And  thinks  of  angels  in  her  prayers, 
Then  sleeps  with  his  small  hand  in  hers." 

Having  in  former  years  merely  passed  through 
Boulogne,  I  had  never  known  before  what  a  pleasant 
old  city  it  is.  Its  clean  streets  and  well-built  houses, 
and  the  air  of  respectable  antiquity  which  pervades 
it,  make  a  very  pleasant  impression  upon  the  mind. 
As  you  stand  on  the  quay,  and  look  across  at  the 
white  cliffs  on  the  other  side  of  the  Channel,  which 
are  distinctly  visible  on  a  clear  day,  the  differences  in 
the  character  of  the  two  nations  so  slightly  separated 
from  one  another,  strike  you  more  forcibly  than  ever. 
The  very  fish  taken  on  the  French  side  of  the  channel 
are  different  from  any  that  you  see  in  England;  and 
as  to  the  fishwomen,  whose  sunburnt  legs,  bare  to  the 
knee,  are  the  astonishment  of  all  new-comers, — go 
over  all  Europe,  and  you  will  find  nothing  like  them. 
That  superb  cathedral,  the  shrine  of  our  Lady  of 
Boulogne,  upon  which  the  storm  of  the  first  French 
revolution  beat  with  such  fury,  is  now  beginning  to 
wear  a  look  of  completion.  Its  dome,  one  of  the 

£184:1 


PARIS  TO  BOULOGNE 

loftiest  and  most  graceful  in  the  world,  is  a  striking 
and  beautiful  feature  in  the  view  of  the  city.  For 
more  than  twelve  centuries  this  has  been  a  famous 
shrine.  Kings  and  princes  have  visited  it,  not  with 
the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  royalty,  but  in  the 
humble  garb  of  the  pilgrim.  Henry  VIII.  made  a 
pilgrimage  hither  in  his  unenlightened  days,  before 
the  pious  Cranmer  had  taught  him  how  wicked  it  was 
to  honour  the  Mother  whom  his  Saviour  honoured, 
and  how  godly  and  just  it  was  to  divorce  and  put  to 
death  the  mothers  of  his  children.  Here  it  was  that 
the  heroic  crusader,  Godfrey,  kindled  the  flame  of 
that  devotion  which  nerved  his  arm  against  the  foes 
of  Christianity,  and  added  a  new  lustre  to  his 
knightly  fame.  It  is  a  fashion  of  the  present  day  to 
sneer  at  the  age  of  chivalry  and  the  crusades,  and 
some  of  our  best  writers  have  been  enticed  into  the 
following  of  it.  While  we  have  so  many  subjects 
deserving  the  treatment  of  the  satirist,  at  our  very 
doors,— while  we  have  the  fashionable  world  to 
draw  upon, — while  we  can  look  around  on  political 
parsons,  professional  philanthropists  and  patriots, 
politicians  who  talk  of  principle,  and  followers  who 
are  weak  enough  to  believe  in  them — it  would  really 
seem  as  if  we  might  allow  the  crusaders  and  trou- 
badours to  rest.  Supposing,  for  the  sake  of  argu- 
ment, Christianity  to  be  a  true  religion, — supposing 
it  to  be  a  fact  that  eighteen  hundred  years  ago  the 
plains  of  Palestine  were  trodden  by  the  blessed  feet 
that  were  "nailed  for  our  advantage  on  the  bitter 
cross" — the  redemption  of  the  land  which  had  been 
the  scene  of  the  sacred  history,  from  the  sacrilegious 
hands  of  the  Saracens,  was  certainly  an  enterprise 

£185:1 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

creditable  to  St.  Louis,  and  Richard  the  lion-hearted, 
and  Godfrey,  and  the  other  gentlemen  who  sacrificed 
so  much  in  it.  It  was  certainly  as  respectable  an  un- 
dertaking as  any  of  the  crusades  of  modern  times, — 
as  that  of  the  Spaniards  in  America,  the  English  in 
India,  or  the  United  States  in  Mexico,— with  this 
exception,  that  it  was  not  so  profitable.  I  am  afraid 
that  some  of  our  modern  satirists  are  lacking  in  the 
spirit  of  their  profession,  and  allow  themselves  to  be 
made  the  mouthpieces  of  that  worldly  wisdom  which 
it  is  their  office  to  rebuke.  I  can  see  nothing  to  sneer 
at  in  the  crusader  exiling  himself  from  his  native 
land,  and  forfeiting  his  life  in  the  defence  of  the 
Holy  Sepulchre;  indeed,  I  am  inclined  to  respect  a 
man  who  makes  such  a  sacrifice  to  a  conscientious 
conviction:  it  is  a  noble  conquest  of  the  visible  tem- 
poral by  the  unseen  eternal.  I  can  well  understand 
how  such  efforts  for  the  protection  of  a  mere  empty 
tomb  would  seem  worthy  of  laughter  and  ridicule  to 
those  who  can  find  no  food  for  satire  in  the  auri  sacra 
fames  which  has  been  the  motive  of  modern  foreign 
expeditions.  It  would  be  well  for  the  world  could 
we  bring  back  something  of  that  age  of  chivalry 
which  Edmund  Burke  regretted  so  eloquently.  We 
need  it  sorely;  for  we  are  every  day  sliding  farther 
down  from  its  high  standard  of  honour  and  of  un- 
selfish devotion  to  principle. 

There  is  a  little  fishing  village  about  a  mile  and  a 
half  from  Boulogne,  on  the  sea  coast  towards  Calais, 
which  is  celebrated  in  history  as  having  been  the 
scene  of  the  landing  of  Prince  Louis  Napoleon  and 
his  companions  in  their  unsuccessful  attempt  to  over- 
throw the  government  of  Louis  Philippe.  Napoleon 


PARIS  TO  BOULOGNE 

III.  has  not  distinguished  the  spot  by  any  memorial; 
but  he  has  erected  a  colossal  statue  of  Napoleon  I. 
on  the  spot  where  that  insatiable  conqueror,  with  his 
mighty  army  around  him,  looked  longingly  at  the 
coast  of  England.  There  is  something  of  a  contrast 
between  the  day  thus  commemorated  and  that  on 
which  the  "nephew  of  his  uncle"  received  Queen 
Victoria  at  Boulogne,  when  she  visited  France.  It 
must  have  been  a  great  satisfaction  to  Louis  Na- 
poleon, after  his  life  of  exile,  and  particularly  after 
the  studied  neglect  which  he  experienced  from  the 
English  nobility,  to  have  welcomed  the  British  Queen 
to  his  realm  with  that  kiss  which  is  the  token  of 
equality  among  sovereigns.  Waterloo  must  have 
been  blotted  out  when  he  saw  the  Queen — in  whose 
realm  he  had  served  the  cause  of  good  order  in  the 
rank  of  special  constable — bending  down  at  his  knee 
to  confer  upon  him  the  order  of  the  garter. 

In  spite  of  its  geographical  situation,  Boulogne 
can  hardly  be  considered  a  French  town.  The  police 
department  and  the  custom  house  are  in  the  hands  of 
the  French,  to  be  sure;  but  in  the  course  of  a  walk 
through  its  streets,  you  hear  much  more  of  the  Eng- 
lish than  of  the  French  language.  You  meet  those 
brown  shooting  jackets,  and  checked  trousers,  and 
thick  shoes  and  gaiters  that  are  at  home  every  where 
in  the  "inviolate  island  of  the  sage  and  free."  You 
cannot  turn  a  corner  without  coming  upon  some  of 
those  beefy  and  beery  countenances  which  symbolize 
so  perfectly  the  genius  of  British  civilization,  and 
hearing  the  letter  H  exasperated  to  a  wonderful  de- 
gree. Every  where  you  see  bevies  of  young  ladies 
wearing  those  peculiar  brown  straw  hats,  edged  with 

£187:1 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

black  lace,  with  a  brown  feather  put  in  horizontally 
on  one  side  of  the  crown,  a  style  of  head  dress  to 
which  the  French  and  Italians  have  given  the  name 
of  "Ingleesh  spoken  here."  There  is  a  large  class 
among  the  English  population  of  Boulogne  upon 
which  the  disinterested  spectator  will  look  with  in- 
terest and  with  pity.  I  mean  those  unfortunate  per- 
sons who  have  been  obliged  by  "force  of  circum- 
stances" and  the  importunity  of  creditors  to  exile 
themselves  for  a  time  from  their  native  land.  You 
see  them  on  every  side;  and  all  ranks  in  society  are 
represented  among  them,  from  the  distinguished- 
looking  man,  with  the  tortoise-shell  spectacles,  who 
ran  through  his  wife's  property  at  the  club,  to  the 
pale,  unhappy-looking  fellow  in  the  loose  thread 
gloves  and  sleepless  coat.  You  can  distinguish  them 
at  a  glance  from  their  fellow-countrymen  who  have 
gone  over  for  purposes  of  recreation,  the  poor  devils 
walk  about  with  such  an  evident  wish  to  appear  to  be 
doing  something  or  going  somewhere.  The  condi- 
tion of  the  prisoners,  or  rather  the  "collegians,"  in 
the  old  Marshalsea  prison,  must  have  been  an  en- 
viable one,  compared  to  these  unfortunates,  con- 
demned to  gaze  at  the  cliffs  of  Old  England  from  a 
distance,  and  wait  vainly  for  something  to  turn  up. 

The  arrival  and  departure  of  the  English  steam- 
ers is  the  only  source  of  excitement  that  the  quiet  city 
of  Boulogne  possesses.  I  was  astonished  to  find, 
after  being  there  a  day  or  two,  what  an  interest  I 
took  in  those  occurrences.  I  found  myself  on  the 
quay  with  the  rest  of  the  foreign  population  of  the 
town,  an  hour  before  the  departure  of  the  boat,  to 
make  sure,  like  every  body  else  there,  that  not  a 

£188:3 


PARIS  TO  BOULOGNE 

traveller  for  England  should  escape  my  notice.  Be- 
sides the  pleasure  of  inspecting  the  motley  crowd  of 
spectators,  I  was  gratified  one  day  to  see  the  big, 
manly  form  and  good-natured  ugly  face  of  Thack- 
eray, following  a  leathern  portmanteau  on  its  path 
from  the  omnibus  to  the  boat.  The  great  satirist 
took  an  observation  of  the  crowd  through  his  spec- 
tacles as  if  he  were  making  a  mental  note,  to  be  over- 
hauled in  due  season,  and  then  hurried  on  board,  as  if 
he  longed  to  get  back  to  London  among  his  books. 
He  had  been  spending  the  warm  season  at  the  baths 
of  Hombourg.  But  the  great  excitement  of  the  day 
is  the  arrival  of  the  afternoon  boat  from  Folkestone. 
It  is  better  as  an  amusement  than  many  plays  that  I 
have  seen,  and  it  has  this  advantage,  (an  indispensa- 
ble one  to  a  large  part  of  the  English  population  of 
Boulogne,)  that  it  costs  nothing.  During  the  days 
when  I  was  there,  the  equinoctial  gale  was  in  full 
blow,  and,  of  course,  there  was  a  greater  rush  than 
usual  to  the  quay.  It  was  necessary  to  go  very  early 
to  secure  a  good  place.  From  the  steamer  to  the 
passport  office,  a  distance  of  two  or  three  hundred 
feet,  ropes  were  stretched  to  keep  back  the  spec- 
tators, forming  an  avenue  some  thirty  feet  wide. 
Through  this  the  wretched  victims  of  the  "chop  sea" 
of  the  Channel  were  obliged  to  pass,  and  listen  to  the 
remarks  or  laughter  which  their  pitiable  condition 
excited  among  the  crowd  of  their  disinterested  coun- 
trymen. Any  person  who  has  ever  been  seasick  can 
imagine  what  it  would  be  to  go  on  shore  from  a  boat 
that  has  just  been  pitching  and  rolling  about  in  the 
most  absurd  manner,  and  try  to  walk  like  a  Chris- 
tian, with  the  eyes  of  several  hundred  amusement- 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

seeking  people  fixed  upon  him.  Sympathy  is  entirely 
out  of  the  question.  The  pallid  countenance  and 
uncertain  step,  as  if  the  walker  were  waiting  for  the 
pavement  to  rise  to  meet  his  foot,  excite  nothing  but 
mirth  in  the  spectators.  The  whole  scene,  including 
the  lookers-on,  was  one  of  the  funniest  things  I  ever 
saw.  The  observations  of  the  crowd,  too,  were  well 
calculated  to  heighten  the  effect.  "Ease  her  when 
she  pitches,"  cried  out  a  youngster  at  my  side,  as  an 
old  lady,  who  was  supported  by  a  gentleman  and  a 
maid  servant,  seemed  to  be  trying  to  accommodate 
herself  to  the  motion  of  the  street,  and  testify  her 
love  for  terra  firma  by  lying  down.  "Hard  a'  star- 
board," shouted  another,  as  a  gentleman,  with  a  felt 
hat  close  reefed  to  his  head  with  a  white  handker- 
chief, sidled  along  up  the  leeward  side  of  the  passage 
way.  "That  'ere  must  'a  been  a  sewere  case  of  sick- 
ness," said  a  little  old  man,  in  an  advanced  state  of 
seediness,  as  a  tall  man,  looking  defiance  at  the 
crowd,  walked  ashore  with  a  carpet-bag  in  his  hand, 
and  an  expression  on  his  face  very  like  that  of  Mr. 
Warren,  in  the  farce,  when  he  says,  "Shall  I  slay  him 
at  once,  or  shall  I  wait  till  the  cool  of  the  evening?" 
"Don't  go  yet,  Mary,"  said  a  young  gentleman  in  a 
jacket  and  precocious  hat,  to  his  sister,  who  seemed 
to  fear  that  it  was  about  to  begin  to  rain  again, — 
"don't  go  yet ;  the  best  of  all  is  to  come ;  there  's  a  fat 
lady  on  board  who  has  been  so  sick — we  must  wait 
to  see  her!"  And  so  they  went  on,  carrying  out  in 
the  most  exemplary  manner  that  golden  rule  which, 
applied  to  the  period  of  seasickness,  enjoins  upon  us 
that  we  shall  do  unto  others  just  as  others  would  do 
to  us. 

£190;] 


PARIS  TO  BOULOGNE 

It  is  no  joke  to  most  people  to  cross  the  Channel  at 
any  time,  but  to  cross  it  on  the  tail-end  of  the  equinoc- 
tial storm  is  far  from  being  a  humorous  matter.  I 
had  crossed  from  almost  all  the  ports  between  Havre 
and  Rotterdam  in  former  years;  so  I  resolved  to  try 
a  new  route  in  spite  of  the  weather,  and  booked  my- 
self for  a  passage  in  the  boat  from  Boulogne  to  Lon- 
don, direct.  The  steamer  was  called  the  Seine ;  and 
when  we  had  once  got  into  the  open  sea,  a  large  part 
of  the  passengers  seemed  to  think  that  they  were 
insane  to  have  come  in  her.  She  was  a  very  good 
sea-boat,  but  I  could  not  help  contrasting  her  with 
our  Sound  and  Hudson  River  steamers  at  home.  If 
the  "General  Steam  Navigation  Company"  were  to 
import  a  steamer  from  America  like  the  Metropolis 
or  the  Isaac  Newton,  there  would  be  a  revolution  in 
the  travelling  world  of  England.  The  people  here 
would  no  longer  put  up  with  steamers  without  an 
awning  or  any  shelter  from  sun  or  rain.  After  they 
had  enjoyed  the  accommodations  of  one  of  our  great 
floating  hotels,  they  would  not  think  of  shutting 
themselves  up  in  the  miserable  cabins  which  people 
pay  so  dearly  for  here.  But  to  proceed:  when  we 
got  fairly  out  upon  the  wasty  deep,  I  ventured  to 
gratify  my  curiosity,  as  a  connoisseur  in  seasickness, 
by  a  visit  to  the  cabin.  If  I  were  in  the  habit  of  writ- 
ing for  the  newspapers,  I  suppose  I  should  say  that 
the  scene  "baffled  description."  It  certainly  was  one 
that  I  shall  not  soon  forget.  The  most  rabid  repub- 
lican would  have  been  satisfied  with  the  equality  that 
prevailed  there.  The  squalls  that  assailed  us  on  deck 
were  nothing  compared  to  the  demonstrations  of  a 
whole  regiment  of  infantry  below,  who  were  illus- 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

trating,  in  a  manner  worthy  of  Retsch,  one  of  the 
first  lines  in  Shakespeare's  Seven  Ages.  Ladies  of 
all  ages  were  keeled  up  on  every  side  in  various  pos- 
tures of  picturesque  negligence,  and  with  a  forgetful- 
ness  of  the  conventionalities  of  society  quite  charming 
to  look  upon.  The  floor,  where  it  was  unoccupied  by 
prostrate  humanity,  was  nearly  covered  with  hat- 
boxes,  and  bonnets,  and  bowls,  and  anonymous  ar- 
ticles of  crockery  ware,  which  were  performing  a 
lively  quadrille,  being  assisted  therein  by  the  motion 
of  the  ship.  But  a  little  of  such  sights,  and  sounds, 
and  smells  as  these  goes  a  great  way  with  me,  and  I 
was  glad  to  return  to  the  wet  deck.  They  had  man- 
aged to  rig  a  tarpaulin  between  the  paddle-boxes, 
and  there  I  took  refuge  until  the  rain  ceased.  It  was 
comparatively  pleasant  weather  when  we  sailed  past 
Walmer  Castle,  where  that  old  hero  died  on  whom 
all  the  world  has  conferred  the  title  of  "The  Duke"  ; 
and  of  course  there  was  no  rough  sea  as  soon  as  we 
got  into  the  Downs.  Black-eyed  Susan  might  have 
gone  on  board  of  any  of  the  fleet  of  vessels  that  were 
lying  there  without  discolouring  her  ribbons  by  a 
single  dash  of  spray.  Ramsgate  and  Margate  (the 
Newport  and  Cape  May  of  England)  looked  full  of 
company  as  we  sailed  by  them,  and  crowds  of  bathers 
were  battling  with  the  surf.  The  heavy  black  yards 
of  the  ships  of  war  loomed  up  at  Sheerness  in  the 
distance,  and  suggested  thoughts  of  Nelson,  and 
Dibdin,  and  Ben  Bowlin.  Now  and  then  we  passed 
by  some  splendid  American  clipper  ship  towing  up  or 
down  the  river,  and  I  felt  proud  of  my  nationality  as 
I  contrasted  her  graceful  lines  and  majestic  propor- 
tions with  the  tub-like  models  of  British  origin  that 


PARIS  TO  BOULOGNE 

every  where  met  my  eye.  The  dock-yards  of  Wool- 
wich seemed  like  a  vast  ant-hill  for  numbers  and 
busy  life.  Greenwich,  with  its  fine  architecture  and 
fresh  foliage  in  the  distance,  was  most  grateful  to 
my  eyes ;  and  it  was  pleasing  to  reflect,  as  I  passed  the 
observatory,  that  I  could  begin  to  reckon  my  longi- 
tude to  the  westward,  for  it  made  me  feel  nearer 
home. 


[1933 


LONDON 

NO  man  can  really  appreciate  the  grandeur  of 
London  until  he  has  approached  it  from  the 
sea.  The  sail  up  the  river  from  Gravesend  to  Lon- 
don Bridge  is  a  succession  of  wonders,  each  one 
more  overwhelming  than  that  which  preceded  it. 
There  is  no  display  of  fortifications;  but  here  and 
there  you  see  some  storm-tossed  old  hulk,  which,  hav- 
ing finished  its  active  career,  has  been  safely  anchored 
in  that  repose  which  powder  magazines  always  en- 
joy. As  the  river  grows  narrower,  the  number  of 
ships,  steamers,  coal  barges,  wherries,  and  boats  of 
every  description,  seems  to  increase;  and  as  you  sail 
on,  the  grand  panorama  of  the  world-wide  com- 
merce of  this  great  metropolis  unfolds  before  you, 
and  you  are  lost,  not  so  much  in  admiration  as  in 
astonishment.  Woolwich,  Greenwich,  Rotherhithe, 
Bermondsey,  Blackwall,  Millwall,  Wapping,  &c., 
follow  rapidly  in  the  vision,  like  the  phantom  kings 
before  the  eyes  of  the  unfortunate  Scotch  usurper, 
until  one  is  tempted  to  inquire  with  him,  whether  the 
"line  will  stretch  out  to  the  crack  of  doom."  The 
buildings  grow  thicker  and  more  unsightly  as  you 
advance;  the  black  sides  of  the  enormous  warehouses 
seem  to  be  bulging  out  over  the  edge  of  the  wharves 
on  which  they  stand;  far  off,  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
tides,  you  see  the  forests  of  masts  that  indicate  the 
site  of  the  docks.  The  bright  green  water  of  the 


LONDON 

Channel  has  been  exchanged  for  the  filthy,  drain-like 
current  of  the  Thames.  Hundreds  of  monstrous 
chimneys  belch  forth  the  smoke  that  constitutes  the 
legitimate  atmosphere  of  London.  Every  thing 
seems  to  be  dressed  in  the  deepest  mourning  for  the 
cruel  fate  of  nature,  and  you  look  at  the  distant  hills 
and  bright  lawns,  over  in  the  direction  of  Sydenham, 
with  very  much  of  the  feeling  that  Dives  must  have 
had,  when  he  gazed  on  the  happiness  of  Lazarus 
from  his  place  of  torment.  Every  thing  presents  a 
most  striking  contrast  to  the  clean,  fair  cities  of  the 
continent.  Paris,  with  its  cream-coloured  palaces 
adorning  the  banks  of  the  Seine,  seems  more  beauti- 
ful than  ever  as  you  recall  it  while  surrounded  by 
such  sights,  and  sounds,  and  smells,  as  offend  your 
senses  here.  The  winding  Arno,  and  the  towers,  and 
domes,  and  bridges,  of  Florence  and  Pisa,  seem  to 
belong  to  a  celestial  vision  rather  than  to  an  earthly 
reality,  as  you  contrast  them  with  the  monuments  of 
England's  commercial  greatness.  At  last,  you  come 
in  sight  of  London  Bridge,  with  its  never-ceasing 
current  of  vehicles  and  human  beings  crossing  it;  and 
your  amazement  is  crowned  by  realizing  that,  not- 
withstanding the  wonders  you  have  seen,  you  have 
just  reached  the  edge  of  the  city,  and  that  you  can 
ride  for  miles  and  miles  through  a  closely-built  laby- 
rinth of  bricks  and  mortar,  hidden  under  the  veil  of 
smoke  before  you. 

And  what  a  change  it  is — from  Paris  to  London! 
To  a  Frenchman  it  must  be  productive  of  a  suicidal 
feeling.  The  scene  has  shifted  from  the  sunny 
Boulevards  to  the  blackened  bricks  and  mortar, 
which  neither  great  Neptune's  ocean,  nor  Lord  Pal- 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

merston's  anti-smoke  enactment  can  wash  clean.  In 
the  place  of  the  smiling,  good-humoured  Frenchman, 
you  have  the  serious,  stately  Englishman.  One 
misses  the  winning  courtesy  of  which  a  Frenchman's 
hat  is  the  instrument,  and  the  ready  pardon  or  merci 
is  heard  no  more.  The  beggary,  the  drunkenness, 
and  the  depravity,  so  apparent  on  every  side,  appall 
one.  Paris  may  be  the  most  immoral  city  in  the 
world;  but  there,  vice  must  be  sought  for  in  its  own 
haunts.  Here  in  London,  it  prowls  up  and  down  in 
the  streets,  seeking  for  its  victims.  Put  all  the  other 
European  capitals  together,  and  I  do  not  believe  that 
you  could  meet  with  so  much  to  pain  and  disgust  you 
as  you  would  in  one  hour  in  the  streets  of  London. 
And  yet,  with  all  this  staring  people  in  the  face  here, 
how  do  they  go  to  work  to  remedy  it?  They  pass 
laws  enforcing  the  suspension  of  business  on  Sun- 
days, and  when  they  succeed  in  keeping  all  the  shut- 
ters closed,  by  fear  of  the  law,  they  fold  their  arms, 
and  say,  "See  what  a  godly  nation  is  this!"  If  this 
is  not  "making  clean  the  outside  of  the  cup  and  plat- 
ter," what  is  it?  For  my  part,  I  much  prefer  that 
perfect  religious  liberty  which  allows  each  man  to 
keep  Sunday  as  he  pleases;  and  the  recent  improve- 
ment in  the  observance  of  the  day  in  France  is  all  the 
more  gratifying,  because  it  does  not  spring  from  any 
compulsory  motive.  Let  the  Jews  keep  the  Sabbath 
as  they  are  commanded  to  in  the  Old  Testament;  but 
Sunday  is  the  Christian's  day,  and  Sunday  is  a  day  of 
festivity  and  rejoicing,  and  not  of  fasting  and  peni- 
tential sadness. 

Despite  the  smoke,   and  the  lack  of  continental 
courtesy  which  is  felt  on  arriving  from  France,  de- 


LONDON 

spite  the  din  and  hurry,  I  cannot  help  loving  London. 
The  very  names  of  the  streets  have  been  made  clas- 
sical by  writers  whose  works  are  a  part  of  our  own 
intellectual  being.  The  illustrious  and  venerable 
names  of  Barclay  and  Perkins,  of  Truman,  Hanbury, 
and  Buxton,  that  meet  our  eyes  at  every  corner,  are 
the  synonymes  of  English  hospitality  and  cheer.  It 
is  a  pleasure,  too,  to  hear  one's  native  language 
spoken  on  all  sides,  after  so  many  months  of  French 
twang.  The  hissing  and  sputtering  English  seems 
under  such  circumstances  to  be  more  musical  than  the 
most  elegant  phrases  of  the  Tuscan  in  the  mouth  of 
a  dignified  Roman.  Even  the  omnibus  conductors' 
talk  about  the  "Habbey,"  the  "Benk,"  'Igh  'Olborn, 
&c.,  does  not  offend  the  ear,  so  delightful  does  it 
seem  to  be  able  to  say  beefsteak  instead  of  biftek. 
The  odour  of  brown  stout  that  prevails  every  where 
is  as  fragrant  as  the  first  sniff  of  the  land  breeze 
after  a  long  voyage.  Temple  Bar  is  eloquent  of  the 
genius  of  Hogarth,  whose  deathless  drawings  first 
made  its  ugly  form  familiar  to  your  youthful  eyes  in 
other  lands.  The  very  stones  of  Fleet  Street  prate  of 
Dr.  Johnson  and  Goldsmith.  You  walk  into  Bolt 
Court,  and  if  you  feel  as  I  do  the  associations  of  the 
place,  you  eat  a  chop  in  the  tavern  that  stands  where 
stood  the  house  of  Dr.  Johnson.  Then  you  cross 
over  the  way  to  Inner  Temple  Lane,  and  mourn  over 
the  march  of  improvement  when  you  see  that  its 
sacrilegious  hand  is  sweeping  away  a  row  of  four 
brick  houses,  which,  dilapidated  and  unsightly  as 
they  may  appear,  are  dear  to  every  lover  of  English 
literature.  In  No.  i,  formerly  dwelt  Dr.  Johnson; 
in  No.  4,  Charles  Lamb.  You  walk  into  the  Temple 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

Church,  and  muse  over  the  effigies  of  the  knights 
who  repose  there  in  marble  or  bronze,  or  go  into  the 
quiet  Temple  Gardens,  and  meditate  on  the  wars  of 
the  red  and  white  roses  that  were  plucked  there  cen- 
turies ago,  before  the  iron  fences  were  built.  It 
would  be  as  difficult  to  pluck  any  roses  there  now  as 
the  most  zealous  member  of  the  Peace  Society  could 
wish.  You  climb  up  Ludgate  Hill,  getting  finely 
spattered  by  the  cabs  and  omnibuses,  and  find  your- 
self at  St.  Paul's.  You  smile  when  you  think  that 
that  black  pile  of  architecture,  with  its  twopenny  fee 
of  admission,  was  intended  to  rival  St.  Peter's,  and 
your  smile  becomes  audible  when  you  enter  it,  and 
see  that  while  the  images  of  the  Saviour  and  the 
Saints  may  not  be  "had  and  retained,"  the  statues  of 
admirals  and  generals  are  considered  perfectly  in 
place  there.  You  walk  out  with  the  conviction  that 
consistency  is  a  jewel,  and  tread  a  pavement  that  is 
classical  to  every  lover  of  books.  Paternoster  Row 
receives  you,  and  you  slowly  saunter  through  it.  No- 
body walks  rapidly  through  Paternoster  Row.  Situ- 
ated midway  between  the  bustle  and  turmoil  of 
Ludgate  Hill  and  Cheapside,  it  is  a  kind  of  resting- 
place  for  pedestrians.  They  breathe  the  more  quiet 
air  of  bookland  there,  and  the  windows  are  a  tempta- 
tion which  few  loiterers  can  withstand. 

The  old  church  of  St.  Mary  le  Bow  reminds  you 
that  you  are  at  the  very  centre  of  Cockneydom,  as 
you  walk  on  towards  the  Bank  and  the  Exchange. 
Crossing  the  street  at  the  risk  of  your  life  through  a 
maze  of  snorting  horses  and  rattling  wheels,  you  get 
into  Cornhill.  Here  the  faces  that  you  see  are  a 
proof  that  the  anxious,  money-getting  look  is  not  con- 


LONDON 

fined  to  the  worshippers  of  the  almighty  dollar.  You 
push  on  until  you  reach  Eastcheap.  How  great  is 
your  disappointment!  The  very  name  has  called  up 
all  your  recollections  of  the  wild  young  prince  and  his 
fat  friend— but  nothing  that  you  see  there  serves  to 
heighten  your  Shakespearean  enthusiasm.  Coal- 
heavers  and  draymen  make  the  air  vocal  with  their 
oaths  and  slang,  which  once  resounded  with  the 
laughter  of  Jack  Falstaff  and  his  jolly  companions. 
No  Mistress  Quickly  stands  in  the  doorway  of  any 
of  the  numerous  taverns.  The  whole  scene  is  a  great 
falling-off  from  what  you  had  imagined  of  East- 
cheap.  The  sanded  floors,  the  snowy  window  cur- 
tains, the  bright  pewter  pots,  have  given  way  to  dirt 
and  general  frowsiness.  You  read  on  a  card  in  a 
window  that  within  you  can  obtain  "a  go  of  brandy 
for  sixpence,  and  a  go  of  gin  for  fourpence,"  and 
that  settles  all  your  Falstaffian  associations.  You 
stop  to  look  at  an  old  brick  house  which  is  being 
pulled  down,  for  you  think  that  perhaps  its  heavy 
timbered  ceilings,  and  low  windows,  and  Guy 
Fawkesy  entries  date  back  to  Shakespeare's  times; 
but  you  are  too  much  incommoded  by  the  dust  from 
its  crumbling  walls  to  stop  long,  and  you  leave  the 
place  carrying  with  you  the  only  reminder  of  Falstaff 
you  have  seen  there — you  leave  with  lime  in  your 
sack! 

I  know  of  nothing  better  calculated  to  take  down 
a  man's  self-esteem  than  a  walk  through  the  streets 
of  London.  To  a  man  who  has  always  lived  in  a 
small  town,  where  every  second  person  he  meets  is  an 
acquaintance,  a  walk  from  Hyde  Park  corner  to 
London  Bridge  must  be  a  crusher.  If  that  does  not 

D99I1 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

convince  him  that  he  is  really  of  very  little  impor- 
tance in  the  world,  he  is  past  cure.  The  whirl  of 
vehicles,  the  throngs  upon  the  sidewalks,  seem  to 
overwhelm  and  blot  out  our  own  individuality. 
Xerxes  cried  when  he  gazed  upon  his  assembled 
forces,  and  reflected  that  out  of  all  that  vast  multi- 
tude not  one  person  would  be  alive  in  a  hundred 
years.  Xerxes  ought  to  have  ridden  through  Oxford 
Street  or  the  Strand  on  the  top  of  an  omnibus. 
Spitalfields  and  Bandanna  (two  places  concerning 
the  geography  of  which  I  am  rather  in  the  dark) 
could  not  have  furnished  him  with  handkerchiefs  to 
dry  his  eyes. 

I  was  never  so  struck  with  the  lack  of  architec- 
tural beauty  in  London  as  I  have  been  during  this 
visit.  There  are,  it  is  true,  a  few  fine  buildings- 
Westminster  Abbey,  St.  Paul's,  Somerset  House, 
&c. ;  but  they  are  all  as  black  as  my  hat,  with  this 
soot  in  which  all  London  is  clothed;  so  there  is  really 
very  little  beauty  about  them.  The  new  Houses  of 
Parliament  are  a  fine  pile  of  buildings,  certainly,  and 
the  lately  finished  towers  are  a  pleasing  feature  in 
the  view  from  the  bridges;  but  they  are  altogether 
too  gingerbready  to  wear  well.  They  lack  boldness 
of  light  and  shade;  and  this  lack  is  making  itself 
more  apparent  every  day  as  the  smoke  of  the  city  is 
enveloping  them  in  its  everlasting  shade.  Bucking- 
ham Palace  looks  like  a  second  rate  American  hotel, 
and  as  to  St.  James,  the  barracks  at  West  Point  are 
far  more  palatial  than  that.  It  is  not  architecture, 
however,  that  we  look  for  in  London.  It  has  a 
charm  in  spite  of  all  its  deformities,— in  spite  of  its 
climate,  which  is  such  an  encouragement  to  the  um- 


LONDON 

brella  makers— in  spite  of  its  smoky  atmosphere, 
through  which  the  sun  looks  like  a  great  copper  ball 
— in  spite  of  its  mud,  which  the  water-carts  insure 
when  the  dark  skies  fail  in  the  discharge  of  their 
daily  dues  to  the  metropolis.  London,  with  all  thy 
fogs,  I  love  thee  still !  It  is  this  great  agglomeration 
of  towns  which  we  call  London— this  great  human 
family  of  more  than  two  millions  and  a  half  of 
beings  that  awakens  our  sympathy.  It  is  the  fact 
that  through  England  we  Americans  trace  our  rela- 
tionship to  the  ages  that  are  past.  It  is  the  fact  that 
we  are  here  surrounded  by  the  honoured  tombs  of 
heroes  and  wise  men,  whose  very  names  have  be- 
come, as  it  were,  a  part  of  our  own  being.  These  are 
the  things  that  bind  us  to  London,  and  which  make 
the  aureola  of  light  that  hangs  over  it  at  night  time 
seem  a  crown  of  glory. 

But  we  must  not  forget  that  there  is  a  dark  side  to 
the  picture.  There  is  a  serious  drawback  to  all  our 
enthusiasm.  Poverty  and  vice  beset  us  at  every  step. 
Beggary  more  abject  than  all  the  world  besides  can 
show  appeals  to  us  at  every  crossing.  The  pale 
hollow  cheek  and  sunken  eye  tell  such  a  story  of  want 
as  no  language  can  express.  The  mother,  standing 
in  a  doorway  with  her  two  hungry-looking  children, 
and  imploring  the  passers-by  to  purchase  some  of  the 
netting  work  her  hands  have  executed,  is  a  sight  that 
touches  your  heart.  But  walk  into  some  of  those 
lanes  and  alleys  which  abound  almost  under  the 
shadow  of  the  Houses  of  Parliament  and  the  royal 
residence, — slums  "whose  atmosphere  is  typhus,  and 
whose  ventilation  is  cholera," — and  the  sentiment  of 
pity  is  lost  in  one  of  fear.  There  you  see  on  every 

£2013 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

side  that  despair  and  recklessness  which  spring  from 
want  and  neglect.  Walk  through  Regent  Street,  and 
the  Haymarket,  and  the  Strand  in  the  evening,  and 
you  shall  be  astonished  at  the  gay  dresses  and  painted 
cheeks  that  surround  you.  The  rummy  atmosphere 
reechoes  with  profanity  from  female  lips.  From 
time  to  time  you  are  obliged  to  shake  off  the  vice  and 
crinoline  that  seek  to  be  companions  of  your  walk. 

There  is  a  distinguished  prize-fighter  here — one 
Benjamin  Caunt.  He  keeps  a  gin  shop  in  St.  Mar- 
tin's Lane,  and  rejoices  in  a  profitable  business  and 
the  title  of  the  "Champion  of  England."  He  trans- 
acted a  little  business  in  the  prize-fighting  line  over 
on  the  Surrey  side  of  the  river  a  few  days  ago,  and  is 
to  sustain  the  honour  of  England  against  another 
antagonist  to-morrow.  During  the  entire  week  his 
gin  shop  has  been  surrounded  by  admiring  crowds, 
anxious  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  hero.  And  such 
crowds  !  It  would  be  wronging  the  lowest  of  the  race 
of  quadrupeds  to  call  those  people  beastly  and  brutal 
wretches.  Most  Americans  think  that  the  Bowery 
and  Five  Points  can  rival  almost  any  thing  in  the 
world  for  displays  of  all  that  is  disgusting  in  society; 
but  London  leaves  us  far  behind.  I  stopped  several 
times  to  note  the  character  of  Mr.  Caunt's  constitu- 
ents. There  were  men  there  with  flashy  cravats 
around  necks  that  reminded  me  of  Mr.  Buckminster's 
Devon  cattle— their  hair  cropped  close  for  obvious 
reasons— moving  about  among  the  crowd,  filling  the 
air  with  damns  and  brandy  fumes.  There  were 
others  in  a  more  advanced  stage  of  "fancy"  existence 
—men  with  all  the  humanity  blotted  out  of  them,  not 
a  spark  of  intellect  left  in  their  beery  countenances. 


LONDON 

There  were  women  drabbled  with  dirt,  soggy  with 
liquor,  with  eyes  artificially  black.  There  were  chil- 
dren pale  and  stunted  from  the  use  of  gin,  or  bloated 
with  beer,  assuming  the  swagger  of  the  blackguards 
around  them,  and  looking  as  old  and  depraved  as 
any  of  them.  It  seemed  as  if  hell  were  empty  and  all 
the  devils  were  there.  The  police— those  guardians 
of  the  public  weal,  who  are  so  efficient  when  a  poor 
woman  is  trying  to  earn  her  bread  by  selling  a  few 
apples — so  prompt  to  make  the  well-intentioned 
"move  on" — did  not  appear  to  interfere.  They  evi- 
dently considered  the  street  to  be  blockaded  for  a 
just  cause,  and  looked  as  if,  in  aiding  people  to  get  a 
look  at  the  Champion  of  England,  they  were  sustain- 
ing the  honour  of  England  herself. 

And  this  is  the  same  England  that  assumes  to 
teach  other  nations  the  science  of  benevolence.  This 
is  the  same  England  that  laments  over  the  tyranny  of 
continental  governments,  and  boasts  of  how  many 
millions  of  Bibles  it  has  sent  to  people  who  could  not 
read  them  if  they  would,  and  would  not  if  they 
could.  This  is  the  same  England  that  turns  up  the 
whites  of  its  eyes  at  American  slavery,  and  wishes 
to  teach  the  King  of  Naples  how  to  govern.  Why, 
you  can  spend  months  in  going  about  the  worst  quar- 
ters of  the  continental  cities,  and  not  see  so  much  of 
vice  and  poverty  as  you  can  in  the  great  thorough- 
fares of  London  in  a  single  day.  There  is  vice 
enough  in  every  large  city,  as  we  all  know;  but  in 
most  of  them  it  has  to  be  sought  for  by  its  votaries— 
in  London  it  goes  about  seeking  whom  it  may  devour. 
The  press  of  England  may  try  to  advance  the  inter- 
ests of  a  prime  minister  anxious  to  get  possession  of 

[203 1 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

Sicily  by  slandering  Ferdinand  of  Naples;  but  every 
body  knows,  who  has  visited  that  fair  kingdom,  that 
there  are  few  monarchs  more  public  spirited  and 
popular  with  all  classes  of  their  subjects  than  he. 
Every  body  knows  that  there  is  no  class  in  that  com- 
munity corresponding  to  the  prize-fighting  class  in 
London — that  the  horrors  of  the  mining  districts  are 
unknown  there,  and  that  an  English  workhouse 
would  make  even  an  Englishman  blush  when  com- 
pared with  those  magnificent  institutions  that  relieve 
the  poor  of  Italy.  I  had  rather  be  sold  at  auction  in 
Alabama  any  day  than  to  take  my  chance  as  a  deni- 
zen of  the  slums  of  London,  or  as  a  worker  in  the 
coal  mines.  I  have  no  patience  with  this  telescopic 
philanthropy  of  the  English,  while  there  are  abuses 
all  around  them  so  much  greater  than  those  that  dis- 
grace any  other  civilized  country.  What  can  be  more 
disgusting  than  this  pharisaical  cant— this  thanking 
God  that  they  are  not  as  others  are— extortioners 
and  slaveholders — when  you  look  at  the  real  condi- 
tion of  things?  Englishmen  always  boast  that  their 
country  has  escaped  the  revolutionary  storm  which 
has  so  many  times  swept  over  Europe  during  this 
century,  and  would  try  to  persuade  people  that  there 
is  little  or  no' discontent  here.  The  fact  is,  the  lower 
classes  in  this  country  have  been  so  ground  down  by 
the  money  power  and  the  force  of  the  government, 
and  are  so  ignorant  and  vicious,  that  they  cannot  be 
organized  into  a  revolutionary  force.  Walk  through 
Whitechapel,  and  observe  the  people  there— con- 
trast them  with  the  blouses  in  the  Faubourg  St.  An- 
toine — and  you  will  acknowledge  the  truth  of  this. 
The  people  in  the  manufacturing  districts  in  France 

£204:1 


LONDON 

are,  indeed,  far  from  being  models  of  morality  or  of 
intellectual  culture ;  but  they  have  retained  enough  of 
the  powers  of  humanity  to  make  them  very  dan- 
gerous, when  collected  under  the  leadership  of 
demagogues  of  the  school  of  Ledru  Rollin.  But  the 
farming  districts  of  France  have  remained  compara- 
tively free  from  the  infection  of  socialism  and  in- 
fidelity. The  late  Henry  Colman,  in  his  agricultural 
tour,  found  villages  where  almost  the  entire  popula- 
tion went  to  mass  every  morning,  before  commencing 
the  labour  of  the  day.  But  the  degradation  of  the 
labouring  classes  of  England  is  not  confined  to  the 
manufacturing  towns;  the  peasantry  is  in  a  most 
demoralized  condition:  the  Chartist  leaders  found 
nearly  as  great  a  proportion  of  adherents  among  the 
farm  labourers  as  among  the  distressed  operatives 
of  Birmingham  and  Sheffield;  and  Mormonism 
counts  its  victims  among  both  of  those  neglected 
classes  by  thousands.  It  is,  perhaps,  all  very  well  for 
ambitious  orators  to  make  the  House  of  Commons 
or  Exeter  Hall  resound  with  their  denunciations  of 
French  usurpations,  Austrian  tyranny,  Neapolitan 
dungeons,  Russian  serfdom,  and  American  slavery; 
but  thinking  men,  when  they  note  these  enthusiastic 
demonstrations  of  philanthropy,  cannot  help  think- 
ing of  England's  workhouses,  the  brutalized  workers 
in  her  coal  mines  and  factories,  and  her  oppressive 
and  cruel  rule  in  Ireland  and  in  India;  and  it  strikes 
them  as  strange  that  a  country,  whose  eyesight  is 
obstructed  by  a  beam  of  such  extraordinary  magni- 
tude, should  be  so  exceedingly  solicitous  about  the 
motes  that  dance  in  the  vision  of  its  neighbours. 

[205;] 


ESSAYS 


STREET   LIFE 

THOMAS  CARLYLE  introduces  his  philo- 
sophical friend,  Herr  Teufelsdrockh,  to  his 
readers,  seated  in  his  watch-tower,  which  overlooks 
the  city  in  which  he  dwells;  and  from  which  he  can 
look  down  into  that  bee-hive  of  human  kind,  and  see 
every  thing  "from  the  palace  esplanade  where  music 
plays,  while  His  Serene  Highness  is  pleased  to  eat 
his  victuals,  down  to  the  low  lane  where  in  her  door- 
sill  the  aged  widow,  knitting  for  a  thin  livelihood, 
sits  to  feel  the  afternoon  sun."  He  draws  an  ani- 
mated picture  of  that  busy  panorama  which  is  ever 
unrolling  before  Teufelsdrockh's  eyes,  and  moralizes 
upon  the  scene  in  the  spirit  of  a  true  poet  who  has 
struck  upon  a  theme  worthy  of  his  lyre.  And,  most 
assuredly,  Thomas  is  right.  The  daisies  and  butter- 
cups are  all  very  well  in  their  way;  but,  as  raw  ma- 
terial for  poetry,  what  are  they  to  the  deep-furrowed 
pavement  and  the  blackened  chimney-pots  of  a  city ! 
In  spite  of  all  our  pantheistic  rhapsodies,  man  is  the 
noblest  of  natural  productions,  and  the  worthiest 
subject  for  the  highest  and  holiest  of  poetic  raptures. 
My  old  friend,  the  late  Mr.  Wordsworth,  delighted 
to  anathematize  the  railway  companies,  and  raved 
finely  about  Nature  never  betraying  the  heart  that 
loves  her:  he  said  that 

" the  sounding  cataract 

Haunted  him  like  a  passion :  the  tall  rock, 

[209^ 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

The  mountain  and  the  deep  and  gloomy  wood, 
Their  colours  and  their  forms,  were  then  to  him 
An  appetite; — " 

and  confessed  that  to  him 

the  meanest  flower  that  blows  could  give 


Thoughts  that  too  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears." 

Yet  notwithstanding  all  this,  he  was  constrained  to 
acknowledge  when  he  stood  upon  Westminster 
Bridge,  and  saw  the  vast,  dingy  metropolis  of  Britain 
wearing  like  a  garment  the  beauty  of  the  morning, 
that 

"Earth  has  not  anything  to  show  more  fair, — 

Dull  would  he  be  of  soul  who  could  pass  by 

A  sight  so  touching  in  its  majesty." 

When  I  was  a  young  man,  it  was  my  delight  to 
brush  with  early  steps  the  dew  away,  and  meet  the 
sun  upon  the  upland  lawn.  There  was  a  romantic 
feeling  about  it  that  I  liked,  and  I  did  not  object  to 
wet  feet.  But  I  have  long  since  put  away  that  de- 
praved taste,  although  the  recent  application  of 
India  rubber  to  shoeing  purposes  has  obviated  the 
inconvenience  of  its  gratification.  Now,  I  am  con- 
tented if  I  can  find  a  level  pavement  and  a  clean 
crossing,  and  will  gladly  give  up  the  woods  and 
verdant  fields  to  less  prosaic  and  more  youthful  peo- 
ple. Your  gout  is  a  sad  interferer  with  early  poetical 
prejudices — but  in  my  own  case  it  has  shown  me  that 
all  such  things,  like  most  of  our  youthful  notions,  are 
mere  fallacies.  It  has  convinced  me  that  the  poetical 
abounds  rather  in  the  smoky,  narrow  streets  of  cities, 
than  in  the  green  lanes,  the  breezy  hills,  and  the 

C2IO] 


STREET  LIFE 

broad  fields  of  the  country.  Like  the  toad,  ugly  and 
venomous,  that  fell  disease  is  not  without  its  jewel. 
It  has  reconciled  me  to  life  in  town,  and  has  shown 
me  all  its  advantages  and  beauties. 

If  it  be  true  that  "the  proper  study  of  mankind  is 
man,"  then  are  the  crowded  streets  of  the  city  more 
improving  and  elevating  to  us  (if  rightly  meditated 
upon)  than  the  academic  groves.  If  you  desire  so- 
ciety,— in  a  city  you  may  find  it  to  your  taste,  how- 
ever fastidious  you  may  be.  If  you  are  a  lover  of 
solitude,  where  can  you  be  more  solitary  than  in  the 
very  whirl  of  a  multitude  of  people  intent  upon  their 
own  pursuits,  and  all  unknown  to  you !  That  honey- 
tongued  doctor,  St.  Bernard,  said  that  he  was  never 
less  alone  than  when  alone — a  sentiment  which,  in  its 
reversed  form,  might  be  uttered  by  any  denizen  of  a 
metropolis.  I  always  loved  solitude  :  the  old  monas- 
tic inscription  was  always  a  favourite  motto  of 
mine: — 

"O  beata  solitude! 
O  sola  beatitude!" 

But  I  have  never  found  any  solitude  like  the  streets 
of  a  large  city.  I  have  walked  in  the  cool,  quiet 
cloister  of  Santa  Maria  dealt  Angeli,  built  amid  the 
ruins  of  the  baths  of  Diocletian,  and— though  my 
footfall  was  the  only  sound  save  the  rustling  of  the 
foliage,  and  the  song  of  the  birds,  and  the  bubbling 
of  a  fountain  which  seemed  tired  with  its  centuries  of 
service,  and  which  seemed  to  make  the  stillness  and 
repose  of  that  spacious  quadrangle  more  profound— 
I  could  not  feel  so  perfectly  alone  there  as  I  have 
often  felt  in  the  thronged  Boulevards  or  the  busy 

tan] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

Strand.  Place  a  mere  worldling  in  those  holy  pre- 
cincts, and  he  would  summon  mentally  around  him 
the  companions  of  his  past  pleasures,  and  his  world- 
liness  would  be  increased  by  his  thus  being  driven  to 
his  only  resources  for  overcoming  the  ungrateful 
quiet  of  the  place.  Introduce  a  religious  man  to 
those  consecrated  shades,  and  his  devotion  would  be 
quickened;  he  would  soon  forget  the  world  which  he 
had  not  loved  and  which  had  not  loved  him,  and  his 
face  would  soon  be  as  unwrinkled,  his  eye  as  serene, 
as  those  of  the  monks  who  dwell  there.  But  place 
either  of  them  in  the  most  crowded  thoroughfare  of 
the  city,  and  the  worldling  would  be  made  for  a  time 
as  meditative  as  the  other.  When  I  was  a  child,  I 
delighted  to  watch  the  busy  inhabitants  of  an  ant- 
hill, pursuing  their  various  enterprises  with  an  in- 
tentness  almost  human;  and  I  should  be  tempted  to 
continue  my  observations  of  them,  were  it  not  that 
the  streets  of  my  native  city  offer  me  a  similar,  but  a 
more  interesting  study.  Xerxes,  we  are  told,  shed 
tears  when  he  saw  his  army  drawn  up  before  him, 
and  reflected  that  not  one  of  all  that  mighty  host 
would  be  alive  a  century  after.  Who  could  ride  from 
Paddington  to  London  Bridge,  through  the  current 
of  human  life  that  flows  ceaselessly  through  the 
streets  of  that  great  city,  without  sharing  somewhat 
in  the  feelings  of  that  tender-hearted  monarch? 

What  are  all  the  sermons  that  ever  were  preached 
from  a  pulpit,  compared  to  those  which  may  be 
found  in  the  stones  of  a  city?  When  we  visit  Pom- 
peii and  Herculaneum,  we  are  thrilled  to  notice  the 
ruts  made  by  the  wheels  of  chariots  centuries  ago. 
The  original  pavement  of  the  Appian  Way,  now  for 


STREET  LIFE 

some  distance  visible,  carries  us  back  more  than  al- 
most any  of  the  other  antiquities  of  Rome,  to  the 
time  when  it  was  trodden  by  captive  kings,  and  re- 
echoed with  the  triumphal  march  of  returning  con- 
querors. I  pity  him  in  whom  these  things  awaken 
no  new  train  of  thought.  The  works  of  man  have 
outlived  their  builders  by  centuries,  and  still  remain 
a  solemn  testimony  to  the  power  and  the  nothingness 
which  originated  them.  Nineveh,  Thebes,  Troy, 
Carthage,  Tyre,  Athens,  Rome,  London,  Paris,  have 
won  the  crown  in  their  turn,  and  have  passed  or  will 
pass  away.  The  dilapidated  sculptures  of  the  former 
have  been  taken  to  adorn  the  museums  of  the  latter, 
and  crowds  have  gazed  and  are  gazing  on  them  with 
curious  eyes,  unmindful  of  their  great  lesson  of  the 
transitoriness  of  the  glory  of  the  world.  These  are, 
indeed,  "sermons  in  stones" ;  but,  like  most  other 
sermons,  we  look  rather  at  their  style  of  finish,  than 
at  the  deep  meaning  with  which  they  are  so  pregnant. 
But  I  did  not  take  up  my  pen  to  write  about  dead 
cities;  I  have  somewhat  to  say  about  the  life  that 
now  renders  the  streets  of  our  own  towns  so  pleas- 
ant, and  makes  us  so  forgetful  of  their  inevitable 
fate.  I  am  not  going  to  claim  for  the  street  life  of 
our  new  world  the  charms  which  abound  in  the  an- 
cient cities  of  Europe.  We  are  too  much  troubled 
about  many  things,  and  too  utilitarian  to  give 
thought  to  those  lesser  graces  which  delight  us 
abroad,  and  which  we  hardly  remember  until  we 
come  home  and  miss  them.  Our  street  architecture, 
improved  though  it  may  have  been  within  a  few 
years,  is  yet  far  behind  the  grace  and  massive  sym- 
metry of  European  towns.  Our  builders  and  real 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

estate  owners  need  to  be  reminded  that  it  costs  no 
more  to  build  in  good  taste  than  in  bad;  that  brick 
work  can  be  made  as  architectural  as  stone;  and  that 
architecture  is  a  great  public  instructor,  whose  works 
are  constantly  open  to  the  public  eye,  and  from 
which  we  are  learning  lessons,  good  or  bad,  whether 
we  will  or  not.  I  think  it  is  Goethe  who  calls  archi- 
tecture frozen  music.  I  am  glad  to  see  these  tall 
piles  rearing  their  ornamented  fronts  on  every  side 
of  us,  even  though  they  are  intended  for  purposes  of 
trade;  for  every  one  of  them  is  a  reproach  to  the 
untasteful  structures  around  it,  and  an  example 
which  future  builders  must  copy,  if  they  do  not  sur- 
pass. The  quaint  beauty  which  charms  us  in  Rouen, 
and  in  the  old  towns  of  Belgium, — the  high  pitched 
gables  leaning  over,  as  if  yearning  to  get  across  the 
narrow  street, — these  all  belong  to  another  age,  and 
we  may  not  possess  them;  but  the  architecture 
which,  in  its  simplicity  or  its  magnificence,  speaks  its 
adaptedness  to  our  climate  and  our  social  wants,  is 
within  our  reach,  and  is  capable  of  making  our  cities 
equal  to  any  in  the  world. 

I  have  a  great  liking  for  streets.  In  the  freshness 
of  morning,  the  glare  of  noonday,  and  the  coolness 
of  evening,  they  have  an  equal  charm  for  me.  I  like 
that  market-carty  period  of  the  day,  before  Labour 
has  taken  up  his  shovel  and  his  hoe,  before  the  sun 
has  tipped  the  chimneys  with  gold,  and  reinspired  the 
dolorous  symphony  of  human  toil,  just  as  his  earliest 
beams  were  wont  to  draw  supernal  melodies  from 
old  Memnon's  statue.  There  is  a  holy  quiet  in  that 
hour,  which,  could  we  preserve  it  in  our  minds,  would 
keep  us  clear  from  many  a  wrong  and  meanness,  into 


STREET  LIFE 

whicK  the  bustle  and  the  heat  of  passion  betray  us, 
and  would  sanctify  our  day.  In  that  time,  the  city 
seems  wrapped  in  a  silent  ecstasy  of  adoration.  The 
incense  of  its  worship  curls  up  from  innumerous 
chimneys,  and  hangs  over  it  like  the  fragrant  cloud 
which  hovers  over  the  altars  where  saints  have 
prayed,  and  religion's  most  august  rites  have  been 
celebrated  for  centuries.  In  the  continental  cities, 
large  numbers  of  people  may  be  seen  at  that  early 
hour  repairing  to  the  churches.  They  are  drawn  to- 
gether by  no  spasmodic,  spiritual  stimulation;  they 
do  not  assemble  to  hear  their  fellow-sinners  tell  with 
nasal  twang  how  bad  they  were  once,  and  how  good 
they  are  now,  nor  to  implore  the  curse  of  Heaven 
upon  those  who  differ  from  them  in  their  belief  or 
disbelief.  They  kneel  beneath  those  consecrated 
arches,  joining  in  a  worship  in  which  scarce  an  au- 
dible word  is  uttered,  and  drawing  from  it  new 
strength  to  tread  the  thorns  of  life.  In  our  own 
cities,  too,  people — generally  of  the  poorer  classes — 
may  be  seen  wending  their  way  in  the  early  morning 
to  churches  and  chapels,  humbler  than  the  marble 
and  mosaic  sanctuaries  of  Europe,  but  one  with  them 
in  that  faith  and  worship  which  radiates  from  the 
majestic  Lateran  basilica,  (omnium  urbis  et  orbis 
ecclesiarum  mater  et  caput,)  and  encircles  the  world 
with  its  anthems  and  supplications. 

A  little  later  in  the  morning,  and  the  silence  is 
broken  by  the  clattering  carts  of  the  dispensers  of 
that  fluid  without  which  custards  would  be  impos- 
sible. The  washing  of  doorsteps  and  sidewalks,  too, 
begins  to  interfere  with  your  perambulations,  and  to 
dim  the  lustre  which  No.  97,  High  Holborn,  has  im- 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

parted  to  your  shoes.  Bridget  leans  upon  her  wet 
broom,  and  talks  with  Anne,  who  leaves  her  water- 
pail  for  a  little  conference,  in  which  the  affairs  of  the 
two  neighbouring  families  of  Smith  and  Jenkins  re- 
ceive, you  may  be  sure,  due  attention.  Men  smoking 
short  and  odorous  pipes,  and  carrying  small,  mys- 
terious-looking tin  pails,  begin  to  awaken  the  echoes 
with  their  brogans,  and  to  prove  him  a  slanderer  who 
should  say  they  have  no  music  in  their  soles.  News- 
paper carriers,  bearing  the  damp  chronicles  of  the 
world's  latest  history  bestrapped  to  their  sides,  hurry 
along,  dispensing  their  favours  into  areas  and  door- 
ways, seasoning  my  friend  Thompson's  breakfast 
with  the  reports  of  the  councils  of  kings,  or  with  the 
readable  inventions  of  "our  own  correspondent,"  and 
delighting  the  gentle  Mrs.  Thompson  with  a  full  list 
of  deaths  and  marriages,  or  another  fatal  railway 
accident.  Then  the  omnibuses  begin  to  rattle  and 
jolt  along  the  streets,  carrying  such  masculine  loads 
that  they  deserve  for  the  time  to  be  called  mail 
coaches.  Later,  an  odour  as  of  broiled  mackerel 
salutes  the  sense;  school  children,  with  their  shining 
morning  faces,  begin  to  obstruct  your  way,  and  the 
penny  postman,  with  his  burden  of  joy  and  sorrow, 
hastens  along  and  rings  peremptorily  at  door  after 
door.  Then  the  streets  assume  by  degrees  a  new 
character.  Toil  is  engaged  in  its  workshops  and  in 
by-places,  and  staid  respectability,  in  its  broadcloth 
and  its  glossy  beaver,  wends  its  deliberate  way  to  its 
office  or  its  counting-house,  unhindered  by  aught  that 
can  disturb  its  equanimity,  unless,  perchance,  it  meets 
with  a  gang  of  street-sweepers  in  the  full  exercise  of 
their  dusty  avocation. 

C2I63 


STREET  LIFE 

Who  can  adequately  describe  that  most  inalien- 
able of  woman's  rights— that  favourite  employment 
of  the  sex — which  is  generally  termed  shopping? 
Who  can  describe  the  curiosity  which  overhauls  a 
wilderness  of  dress  patterns,  and  the  uncomplaining 
patience  of  the  shopman  who  endeavours  to  suit  the 
lady  so  hard  to  be  suited,— his  well-disguised  disap- 
pointment when  she  does  not  purchase,  and  her  hus- 
band's exasperation  when  she  does?  Not  I,  most 
certainly,  for  I  detest  shops,  have  little  respect  for 
fashions,  lament  the  necessity  of  buying  clothes,  and 
wish  most  heartily  that  we  could  return  to  the 
primeval  fig-leaves. 

I  love  the  by-streets  of  a  city — the  streets  whose 
echoes  are  never  disturbed  by  the  heavy-laden 
wagons  which  bespeak  the  greatness  of  our  manu- 
facturing interests.  Formerly  the  houses  in  such 
streets  wore  an  air  of  sobriety  and  respectability,  and 
the  good  housewifery  which  reigned  within  was  sym- 
bolized by  the  bright  polish  of  the  brass  door-plate, 
or  bell-pull,  or  knocker.  Now  they  are  grown  more 
pretentious,  and  the  brass  has  given  place  to  an  out- 
ward and  visible  sign  of  silver.  But  the  streets 
retain  their  old  characteristics,  and  are  strangers  to 
any  sound  more  inharmonious  than  the  shouts  of 
spoitive  children,  or  the  tones  of  a  hand-organ.  I  do 
not  profess  to  be  a  musical  critic,  but  I  have  been 
gifted  by  nature  with  a  tolerable  idea  of  time  and 
tune;  yet  I  am  not  ashamed  to  say  that  I  do  not 
despise  hand-organs.  They  have  given  me  "Sweet 
Home"  in  the  cities  of  Italy,  Yankee  Doodle  in  the 
Faubourg  St.  Germain;  and  the  best  melodies  of 
Europe's  composers  are  daily  ground  out  under  my 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

windows.  I  have  no  patience  with  these  canting  peo- 
ple who  talk  about  productive  labour,  and  who  see  in 
the  organ-grinder  who  limps  around,  looking  up  ex- 
pectantly for  the  remunerating  copper,  only  a  vaga- 
bond whom  it  is  expedient  for  the  police  to  counsel 
to  "move  on."  These  peripatetic  dispensers  of  har- 
mony are  full  as  useful  members  of  society  as  the 
majority  of  our  legislators,  and  have  a  far  more 
practical  talent  for  organization.  Douglas  Jerrold 
once  said  that  he  never  saw  an  Italian  image  mer- 
chant, with  his  Graces,  and  Venuses,  and  Apollos  at 
sixpence  a  head,  that  he  did  not  spiritually  touch  his 
hat  to  him:  "It  is  he  who  has  carried  refinement  into 
the  poor  man's  house;  it  is  he  who  has  accustomed 
the  eyes  of  the  multitude  to  the  harmonious  forms  of 
beauty."  Let  me  apply  these  kindly  expressions  of 
the  dead  dramatist  and  wit  to  the  organ-grinders. 
They  have  carried  music  into  lanes  and  slums,  which, 
without  them,  would  never  have  known  any  thing 
more  melodious  than  a  watchman's  rattle,  and  have 
made  the  poorest  of  our  people  familiar  with  har- 
monies that  might  "create  a  soul  under  the  ribs  of 
death."  Occasionally  their  music  may  be  instrumen- 
tal in  producing  a  feeling  of  impatience,  so  that  I 
wish  that  their  "Mary  Ann"  were  married  off,  and 
that  Norma  would  "hear,"  and  make  an  end  of  it; 
but  my  better  feelings  triumph  in  the  end,  and  I 
would  not  interfere  with  the  poor  man's  and  the 
children's  concert  to  hear  a  strain  from  St.  Cecilia's 
viol.  Let  the  grinders  be  encouraged !  May  the  evil 
days  foretold  in  ancient  prophecy  never  come  among 
us,  when  the  grinders  shall  cease  because  they  are 
few! 

C2I8] 


STREET  LIFE 

It  is  at  evening  that  the  poetic  element  is  found 
most  abundant  in  the  streets  of  cities.  There  is  to 
me  something  of  the  sublime  in  the  long  lines  of  glit- 
tering shop-windows  that  skirt  Regent  Street  and  the 
Boulevards.  Dr.  Johnson  exhorted  the  people  who 
attended  the  sale  of  his  friend  Thrale's  brewery, 
to  remember  that  it  was  not  the  mere  collection  of 
boilers,  and  tubs,  and  vats  which  they  saw  around 
them,  for  which  they  were  about  to  bargain,  but  "the 
potentiality  of  growing  rich  beyond  the  dreams  of 
avarice";  and,  in  a  similar  spirit,  I  see  in  the  shop 
windows  not  merely  the  silks  and  laces,  and  the  other 
countless  luxuries  and  wonders  which  delight  the  eye 
of  taste  and  form  the  source  of  wealth  to  multitudes, 
but  a  vast  exposition  of  the  results  of  that  industry, 
which,  next  to  religion  and  obedience  to  law,  is  the 
surest  foundation  of  national  greatness,  and  which 
shows  us,  behind  the  frowning  Providence  that  laid 
on  man  the  curse  of  labour,  the  smiling  face  of  divine 
beneficence.  There,  in  one  great  collection,  may  be 
seen  the  fruits  of  the  toil  of  millions.  To  produce 
that  gorgeous  display,  artists  have  cudgelled  their 
weary  brains;  operatives  have  suffered;  ship-masters 
have  strained  their  eyes  over  their  charts  and  daily 
observations,  and  borne  patiently  with  the  provoking 
vagaries  of  the  "lee  main  brace";  sailors  have 
climbed  the  icy  rigging  and  furled  the  tattered  top- 
sails with  hands  cracked  and  bleeding;  for  that,  long 
trains  of  camels  freighted  with  the  rich  products  of 
the  golden  East,  "from  silken  Samarcand  to  cedared 
Lebanon,"  have  toiled  with  their  white-turbaned 
drivers  across  the  parching  desert ;  thousands  of  busy 
hands  have  plied  the  swift  shuttle  in  the  looms  of 

£219:1 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

Brussels,  and  Tournai,  and  Lyons;  and  thousands  in 
deep  and  almost  unfathomable  mines  have  suffered  a 
living  death.  Manchester  and  Birmingham  have 
been  content  to  wear  their  suit  of  mourning  that 
those  windows  may  be  radiant  and  gay.  The  tears, 
and  sweat,  and  blood  of  myriads  have  been  poured 
out  behind  those  shining  panes  transmuted  into 
shapes  that  fill  the  beholder  with  wonder  and  delight. 
"In  our  admiration  of  the  plumage  we  forget  the 
dying  bird."  Nevertheless,  above  the  roar  and 
bustle  of  those  whirling  thoroughfares,  above  the 
endless  groan  and  "infinite  fierce  chorus"  of  manhood 
ground  down,  and  starving  in  bondage  more  cruel 
because  it  does  not  bear  the  name  of  slavery,  I  hear 
the  carol  of  virtuous  and  well-rewarded  labour,  and 
the  cheerful  song  of  the  white-capped  lace-makers  of 
Belgium  and  the  vine-dressers  of  Italy  reminds  me 
that  powerful  wrong  does  not  have  every  thing  its 
own  way  even  in  this  world. 

I  did  intend  to  have  gone  farther  in  my  evening 
walk;  but  time  and  space  alike  forbid  it.  I  wished  to 
leave  the  loud  roaring  avenues  for  those  more  quiet 
streets,  where  every  sight  and  sound  speak  of  domes- 
tic comfort,  or  humble  fidelity,  or  patient  effort; 
where  the  brilliancy  of  splendid  mansions  is  but  im- 
perfectly veiled  by  rich  and  heavy  draperies;  where 
high  up  gleams  the  lamp  of  the  patient  student, 
happy  in  his  present  obscurity  because  he  dreams  of 
coming  fame;  and  where  the  tan  on  the  pavement 
and  the  mitigated  light  from  the  windows  are 
eloquent  of  suffering  and  the  sleepless  affection  that 
ministers  to  its  unspoken  wants.  But  I  must  stop. 
If,  however,  I  have  shown  one  of  my  readers,  who 

£220;] 


STREET  LIFE 

regrets  that  he  is  obliged  to  dwell  in  a  city,  that  there 
is  much  that  is  beautiful  in  paved  streets  and  smoke- 
stained  walls,  and  that,  if  we  only  open  our  eyes  to 
see  them,  even  though  the  fresh  fields  and  waving 
woods  may  be  miles  away,  the  beauties  of  nature 
daily  fold  us  in  their  bosom, — I  shall  feel  that  I  have 
not  tasked  my  tired  brain  and  gouty  right  hand  en- 
tirely in  vain. 


4.. 


HARD  UP   IN   PARIS 

MONEY,  whatever  those  who  affect  misan- 
thropy or  a  sublime  superiority  to  all  tem- 
poral things  may  say  to  the  contrary,  is  a  very 
desirable  thing.  We  all  enjoy  the  visit  of  the  great 
Alexander  to  the  contented  inhabitant  of  the  imper- 
ishable tub,  who  was  alike  independent  of  the  good 
will  and  displeasure  of  that  mighty  monarch;  we 
sympathize  with  all  the  bitter  things  that  Timon  says 
when  he  is  reduced  from  wealth  to  beggary;  and  we 
are  never  tired  of  lamenting,  with  Virgil,  that  the 
human  heart  should  be  such  an  abject  prey  to  this 
accursed  hunger  for  gold.  I  am  not  sure  that  Horace 
would  not  be  dearer  to  us,  if  he  had  lived  in  a  "three- 
pair-back"  in  some  obscure  street,  and  his  deathless 
odes  had  been  inspired  by  fear  of  a  shrewish  land- 
lady or  an  inexorable  sheriff,  instead  of  being  an 
honoured  guest  at  the  imperial  court,  and  a  recipient 
of  the  splendid  patronage  of  a  Maecenas  and  an 
Augustus.  Poetical  justice  seems  to  require  a  setting 
of  the  most  cheerless  poverty  for  the  full  develop- 
ment of  the  lustre  of  genius.  At  least,  we  think  so, 
at  times; — though,  under  it  all,  admire  as  we  may  the 
successful  struggles  of  the  want-stricken  bard, — we 
do  not  envy  him  his  penury.  We  should  shrink  from 
his  gifts  and  his  fame,  if  they  were  offered  to  us  with 
his  sufferings.  For  underneath  our  abstract  mag- 
nanimity lurks  the  conviction  that  money  is  by  no 


HARD  UP  IN  PARIS 

means  a  bad  thing,  after  all.  Our  enthusiasm  is 
awakened  by  contemplating  the  self-forgetful  career 
of  Francis  of  Assisi,  who  chose  Poverty  for  his  bride, 
and  whose  name  is  in  benediction  among  men,  even 
six  centuries  after  he  entered  into  possession  of  that 
kingdom  which  was  promised  to  the  poor  in  spirit; 
and,  if  we  should  chance  to  see  a  more  modern  bearer 
of  that  Christian  name,  who  worshipped  the  wealth 
which  the  ancient  saint  despised;  who  trampled  down 
honest  poverty  in  his  unswerving  march  towards  opu- 
lence; who  looked  unmoved  upon  the  tears  of  the 
widow  and  the  orphan;  who  exercised  his  sordid 
apostolate  even  to  the  last  gasp  of  his  miserable  life; 
and  whose  name  (unblessed  by  the  poor,  and  unhon- 
oured  by  canonization)  became,  in  the  brief  period 
that  it  outlived  him,  a  byword  and  a  synonyme  of 
avarice, — we  should  not  fail  to  visit  his  memory  with 
a  cordial  malediction.  But,  in  spite  of  all  our  venera- 
tion for  Francis,  the  apostle  of  holy  poverty,  and  of 
loathing  for  his  namesake,  the  apostle  of  unholy 
wealth,  we  cannot  help  wishing  that  we  had  a  little 
more  of  that  which  the  Saint  cast  away,  and  the  miser 
took  in  exchange  for  his  soul. 

A  little  more— that  is  the  phrase — and  there  is  no 
human  being,  rich  or  poor,  who  does  not  think  that 
"a  little  more"  is  all  that  is  needed  to  fill  up  the 
measure  of  his  earthly  happiness.  It  is  for  this  that 
the  gambler  risks  his  winnings,  and  the  merchant 
perils  the  gains  of  many  toilsome  years.  For  this, 
some  men  labour  until  they  lose  the  faculty  of  enjoy- 
ing the  fruit  of  their  exertions ;  and  this  is  the  ignis 
fatuus  that  goes  dancing  on  before  others,  leading 
them  at  last  into  that  bog  of  bankruptcy  from  which 

£223;] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

they  never  wholly  extricate  themselves.  Enough  is 
a  word  unknown  in  the  lexicon  of  those  who  have 
once  tasted  the  joy  of  having  money  at  interest,  and 
there  are  very  few  men  who  practically  appreciate 
the  wisdom  of  the  ancient  dramatist  who  tells  us  that 

"He  is  most  rich  who  stops  at  competence, — 
Not  labours  on  till  the  worn  heart  grows  sere, — 
Who,  wealth  attained,  upon  some  loftier  aim 
Fixes  his  gaze,  and  never  turns  it  backward." 

"Give  me  neither  poverty  nor  riches,"  has  been  my 
prayer  through  life,  as  it  was  that  of  the  ancient 
sage ;  and  it  has  always  been  my  opinion  that  a  man 
who  owns  even  a  single  acre  of  land  within  a  conve- 
nient distance  of  State  Street  or  of  the  Astor  House, 
is  just  as  well  off  as  if  he  were  rich.  My  petition  has 
been  answered:  but  it  must  be  confessed  that  when  I 
mouse  in  the  book  shops,  or  turn  over  the  rich  port- 
folios of  the  print  dealers,  I  feel  that  I  am  poor  in- 
deed. I  do  not  envy  him  who  can  adorn  the  walls  of 
his  dwelling  with  the  masterpieces  of  ancient  or 
modern  art  on  their  original  canvas ;  but  I  do  crave 
those  faithful  reproductions  which  we  owe  to  the 
engraver's  skill,  and  which  come  so  near  my  grasp 
as  to  aggravate  my  covetousness,  and  make  me  speak 
most  disrespectfully  of  my  unelastic  purse. 

Few  people  have  spent  any  considerable  time 
abroad  without  being  for  a  season  in  straitened  cir- 
cumstances. A  mistake  may  have  been  made  in  reck- 
oning up  one's  cash,  or  a  bill  may  be  longer  than  was 
expected,  or  one's  banker  may  temporarily  suspend 
payment;  and  suddenly  he  who  never  knew  a  mo- 
ment's anxiety  about  his  pecuniary  affairs  finds  him- 

[224:1 


HARD  UP  IN  PARIS 

self  wondering  how  he  can  pay  for  his  lodgings,  and 
where  his  next  day's  beefsteak  is  coming  from.  It 
was  my  good  fortune  once  to  undergo  such  a  trial  in 
Paris.  I  say  good  fortune — for,  unpleasant  as  it  was 
at  the  time,  it  was  one  of  the  most  precious  experi- 
ences of  my  life.  I  do  not  think  that  a  true,  manly 
character  can  be  formed  without  placing  the  subject 
in  the  position  of  a  ship's  helm,  when  she  is  in  danger 
of  getting  aback;  to  speak  less  technically,  he  must 
(once  in  his  life,  at  least)  be  hard  up. 

I  was  younger  in  those  days  than  I  am  now,  and 
was  living  for  a  time  in  the  gay  capital  of  France. 
My  lodgings  were  in  one  of  those  quiet  streets  that 
lead  to  the  Place  Ventadour,  in  which  the  Italian 
Opera  House  stands.  My  room  was  about  twelve 
feet  square,  was  handsomely  furnished,  and  deco- 
rated with  a  large  mirror,  and  a  polished  oaken  floor 
that  rivalled  the  mirror  in  brilliancy.  Its  window 
commanded  an  unobstructed  view  of  a  court-yard 
about  the  size  of  the  room  itself;  but,  as  I  was  pretty 
high  up  (on  the  second  floor  coming  down)  my  light 
was  good,  and  I  could  not  complain.  As  I  write,  it 
seems  as  if  I  could  hear  the  old  concierge  blacking 
boots  and  shoes  away  down  at  the  bottom  of  that 
well  of  a  court-yard,  enlivening  his  toil  with  an  occa- 
sional snatch  from  some  old  song,  and  now  and  then 
calling  out  to  his  young  wife  within  the  house,  with  a 
clear  voice,  "Marie!"— the  accent  of  the  final  syl- 
lable being  prolonged  in  a  preternatural  manner. 
And  then  out  of  the  same  depths  came  a  melodious 
response  from  Marie's  blithesome  voice,  that  made 
me  stop  shaving  to  enjoy  it — a  voice  that  seemed  in 
perfect  harmony  with  the  cool  breath  and  bright  sky 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

of  that  sunny  spring  morning.  Marie  was  a  repre- 
sentative woman  of  her  class.  I  do  not  believe  that 
she  could  have  been  placed  in  any  honest  position, 
however  high,  tEat  she  would  not  have  adorned.  Her 
simplicity  and  good  nature  conciliated  the  good  will 
of  every  one  who  addressed  her,  and  I  have  known 
her  quiet,  lady-like  dignity  to  inspire  even  some  loud 
and  boastful  Americans,  who  called  on  me,  with  a 
momentary  sentiment  of  respect.  They  appeared 
almost  like  gentlemen  for  two  or  three  minutes  after 
speaking  with  her.  Upon  my  honour,  sir,  it  was 
worth  considerably  more  than  I  paid  for  my  room  to 
have  the  privilege  of  living  under  the  same  roof  with 
such  a  cheery  sunbeam — to  see  her  seated  daily  at  the 
window  of  the  conciergerie  with  a  snow-white  cap  on 
her  head  and  a  pleasant  smile  on  her  face;  to  inter- 
rupt her  sewing,  with  an  inquiry  whether  any  letters 
had  come  for  me,  and  be  charmed  with  her  alacrity 
in  handing  me  the  expected  note,  and  the  key  of 
nttmero  dix-huit.  Her  nightly  Bon  soirt  M'sieur,  was 
like  a  benediction  from  a  guardian  angel;  her  viva- 
cious Bon  jour  was  an  augury  of  an  untroubled  day; 
it  would  have  made  the  darkest,  foggiest  November 
afternoon  seem  as  bright,  and  fresh,  and  exhilarat- 
ing as  a  morning  in  June.  These  are  trifles,  I  know, 
but  it  is  of  trifles  such  as  these  that  the  true  happiness 
of  life  is  made  up.  Great  joys,  like  great  griefs,  do 
not  possess  the  soul  so  completely  as  we  think,  as 
Wellington  victorious,  or  Napoleon  defeated,  at 
Waterloo,  would  have  discovered,  if,  in  that  great 
hour,  they  had  been  visited  with  a  twinge  of  neuralgia 
in  the  head,  or  a  gnawing  dyspepsia. 

The  influenza,  or  grippe,  as  the  French  call  it,  is 

C2263 


HARD  UP  IN  PARIS 

not  a  pleasant  thing  under  any  circumstances;  but  I 
think  of  a  four  days'  attack,  during  which  Marie  at- 
tended to  my  wants,  as  a  period  of  unmixed  pleasure. 
She  seemed  to  hover  about  my  sick  bed,  she  moved 
so  gently,  and  her  voice  (to  use  the  words  of  my 
former  cherished  friend,  S.  T.  Coleridge,)  was  like 

" a  hidden  brook 


In  the  leafy  month  of  June, 
That  to  the  sleeping  woods  all  night 
Singeth  a  quiet  tune." 

"Was  it  that  Monsieur  would  be  able  to  drink  a  little 
tea,  or  would  it  please  him  to  taste  some  cool  lemo- 
nade?" Helas!  Monsieur  was  too  malade  for  that; 
but  the  kind  attentions  of  that  estimable  little  woman 
were  more  refreshing  than  a  Baltic  Sea  of  the 
beverage  that  cheers  but  does  not  inebriate,  or  all  the 
aid  that  the  lemon  groves  of  Italy  could  afford.  Ma- 
ne's politeness  was  the  genuine  article,  and  came 
right  from  her  pure,  kind  heart.  It  was  as  far  re- 
moved from  that  despicable  obsequiousness  which 
passes  current  with  so  many  for  politeness,  as  old- 
fashioned  Christian  charity  is  from  modern  philan- 
thropy. 

But — pardon  my  garrulity — I  am  forgetting  my 
story.  In  a  moment  of  kindly  forgetfulness  I  lent  a 
considerable  portion  of  my  available  funds  to  a 
friend  who  was  short,  and  who  was  obliged  to  return 
to  America,  via  England.  I  was  in  weekly  expecta- 
tion of  a  draft  from  home  that  would  place  me  once 
more  upon  my  financial  legs.  One,  two,  three  weeks 
passed  away,  and  the  letters  from  America  were  dis- 
tributed every  Tuesday  morning,  but  there  was  none 

C227I] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

for  me.  It  gave  me  a  kind  of  faint  sensation  when 
the  clerk  at  the  banker's  gave  me  the  disappointing 
answer,  and  I  went  into  the  reading-room  of  the 
establishment  to  read  the  new  American  papers,  and 
to  speculate  upon  the  cause  of  the  unremitting  neg- 
lect of  my  friends  at  home.  I  shall  never  forget  my 
feelings  when,  in  the  third  week  of  my  impecuniosity, 
I  found  my  exchequer  reduced  to  the  small  sum  of 
eight  francs.  I  saw  the  truth  of  Shakespeare's  words 
describing  the  "consumption  of  the  purse"  as  an  in- 
curable disease.  I  had  many  acquaintances  and  a 
few  friends  in  Paris,  but  I  determined  not  to  borrow 
if  it  could  possibly  be  avoided.  Five  days  would 
elapse  before  another  American  mail  arrived,  and  I 
resolved  that  my  remaining  eight  francs  should  carry 
me  through  to  the  eventful  Tuesday,  which  I  felt 
sure  would  bring  the  longed-for  succor.  I  found  a 
little  dingy  shop,  in  a  narrow  street  behind  the 
Church  of  St.  Roch,  where  I  could  get  a  breakfast, 
consisting  of  a  bowl  of  very  good  coffee  and  piece  of 
bread  (I  asked  for  the  end  of  the  loaf)  for  six  sous. 
My  dinners  I  managed  to  bring  down  to  the  sum  of 
twelve  sous,  by  choosing  obscure  localities  for  the 
obtaining  of  that  repast,  and  confining  myself  to 
those  simple  and  nutritious  viands  which  possessed 
the  merit  attributed  to  the  veal  pie  by  Samuel 
Weller,  being  "werry  fillin'  at  the  price."  Some- 
times I  went  to  bed  early,  to  avoid  the  inconveniences 
of  a  light  dinner.  One  day  I  dined  with  a  friend  at 
his  lodgings,  but  I  did  not  enjoy  his  hospitality;  I  felt 
guilty,  as  if  I  had  sacrificed  friendship  to  save  my 
dwindling  purse.  The  coarsest  bread  and  the  most 
suspicious  beef  of  the  Latin  Quarter  would  have  been 


HARD  UP  IN  PARIS 

more  delicious  to  me  under  such  circumstances  than 
the  best  ragout  of  the  Boulevards  or  the  Palais 
Royal. 

Of  course,  this  state  of  things  weighed  heavily 
upon  my  spirits.  I  heard  Marie  tell  her  husband 
that  Monsieur  1'Anglais  was  bien  triste.  I  avoided 
the  friends  with  whom  I  had  been  used  to  meet,  and 
(remembering  what  a  sublime  thing  it  is  to  suffer  and 
b^  strong)  sternly  resolved  not  to  borrow  till  I 
found  myself  completely  gravelled.  It  grieved  me 
to  be  obliged  to  pass  the  old  blind  man  who  played 
the  flageolet  on  the  Pont  des  Arts  without  dropping 
a  copper  into  his  tin  box;  but  the  severest  blow  was 
the  being  compelled  to  put  off  my  obliging  washer- 
woman and  her  reasonable  bill.  The  time  passed 
away  quickly,  however.  The  Louvre,  with  its  treas- 
ures of  art,  was  a  blessed  asylum  for  me.  It  cost  me 
nothing,  and  I  was  there  free  from  the  importunities 
of  distress  which  I  could  not  relieve.  In  the  halls  of 
the  great  public  library— now  the  Bibllotheque  Im- 
periale — I  found  myself  at  home.  Among  the  stu- 
dious throng  that  occupied  its  vast  reading  rooms,  I 
was  as  independent  as  if  my  name  had  been  Roth- 
schild, or  the  treasures  of  the  Bank  of  France  had 
been  at  my  command.  The  master  spirits  with 
whom  I  there  communed  do  not  ask  what  their 
votaries  carry  in  their  pockets.  There  is  no  prop- 
erty-test for  admission  to  the  privileges  of  their 
companionship.  I  felt  the  equality  which  prevails  in 
the  republic  of  letters.  I  knew  that  my  left  hand 
neighbour  was  not,  in  that  quiet  place,  superior  to 
me  on  account  of  his  glossy  coat  and  golden-headed 
cane,  and  that  I  was  no  better  than  the  reader  at  my 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

right  hand  because  he  wore  a  blouse.  I  jingled  my 
two  or  three  remaining  francs  in  my  pocket,  and 
thought  how  useless  money  was,  when  the  lack  of  it 
was  no  bar  to  entrance  into  the  hallowed  presence  of 

"Those  dead  but  sceptred  sovereigns  who  still  rule 
Our  spirits  from  their  urns." 

I  shall  not  soon  forget  the  intense  satisfaction  with 
which  I  read  in  the  regulations  of  the  library  a  strict 
prohibition  against  offering  any  fees  or  gratuities 
whatever  to  its  blue-coated  officials. 

At  last  the  expected  Tuesday  morning  came.  My 
funds  had  received  an  unlooked-for  diminution  by 
receiving  a  letter  from  my  friend  whose  wants  had 
led  me  into  difficulty.  He  was  just  embarking  at 
Liverpool — hoped  that  my  remittance  had  arrived  in 
due  season — promised  to  send  me  a  draft  as  soon  as 
he  reached  New  York— envied  my  happiness  at  re- 
maining in  Paris — and  left  me  to  pay  the  postage  on 
his  valediction.  It  would  be  difficult  for  any  disinter- 
ested person  to  conceive  how  dear  the  thoughtless 
writer  of  that  letter  was  to  me  in  that  unfortunate 
hour.  Then,  too,  I  was  obliged  to  lay  out  six  of 
those  cherished  copper  coins  for  a  ride  in  an  omni- 
bus, as  I  was  caught  in  a  shower  over  in  the  vicinity 
of  St.  Sulpice,  and  could  not  afford  to  take  the  risk  of 
a  rheumatic  attack  by  getting  wet.  I  well  remember 
the  cool,  business-like  air  with  which  that  relentless 
conducteur  pocketed  those  specimens  of  the  French 
currency  that  were  so  precious  in  my  sight.  Yet,  in 
spite  of  these  serious  and  unexpected  drains  upon  my 
finances,  I  had  four  sous  left  after  paying  for  my 
breakfast  on  that  memorable  morning.  I  felt  un- 

£230] 


HARD  UP  IN  PARIS 

commonly  cheerful  at  the  prospect  of  being  relieved 
from  my  troubles,  and  stopped  several  minutes  after 
finishing  my  coffee,  and  conversed  with  the  tidy  shop- 
woman  with  a  fluency  that  astonished  both  of  us.  I 
really  regretted  for  the  moment  that  I  was  so  soon 
to  be  placed  in  funds,  and  should  no  longer  enjoy  her 
kindly  services.  I  chuckled  audibly  to  myself  as  I 
pursued  my  way  to  the  banker's,  to  think  what  an 
immense  joke  it  would  be  for  some  skilful  Charley 
Bates  or  Artful  Dodger  to  try  to  pick  my  pocket  just 
then.  An  ancient  heathen  expecting  an  answer  from 
the  oracle  of  Delphos,  a  modern  candidate  for  office 
awaiting  the  count  of  the  vote,  never  felt  more  op- 
pressed with  the  importance  of  the  result  than  I  did 
when  I  entered  the  banking-house.  My  delight  at 
having  a  letter  from  America  put  into  my  hands 
could  only  be  equalled  by  my  dismay  when  I  opened 
it,  and  found,  instead  of  the  draft,  a  request  from  a 
casual  acquaintance  who  had  heard  that  I  might 
possibly  return  home  through  England,  and  who,  if 
I  did,  would  be  under  great  obligations  if  I  would 
take  the  trouble  to  procure  and  carry  home  for  him 
an  English  magpie  and  a  genuine  King  Charles 
spaniel ! 

I  did  not  stop  to  read  the  papers  that  morning. 
As  I  was  leaving  the  establishment,  I  met  its  chief 
partner,  to  whom  I  could  not  help  expressing  my 
disappointment.  He  was  one  of  your  hard-faced, 
high-cheek-boned  Yankees,  with  a  great  deal  of 
speculation  in  his  eyes.  I  should  as  soon  have 
thought  of  attempting  the  cultivation  of  figs  and 
dates  at  Franconia  as  of  trying  to  get  a  small  loan 
from  him.  So  I  pushed  on  into  those  busy  streets 

O3O 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

whose  liveliness  seemed  to  mock  my  pitiable  condi- 
tion. I  had  come  to  it  at  last.  I  had  got  to  borrow. 
A  physician,  who  now  stands  high  among  the  faculty 
in  Boston,  was  then  residing  in  Paris,  and,  as  I  had 
been  on  familiar  terms  with  him,  I  determined  to 
have  recourse  to  him.  He  occupied  two  rooms  in 
the  fifth  story  of  a  house  in  the  Rue  St.  Honore.  His 
apartments  were  more  remarkable  for  their  snugness 
than  for  the  extent  of  accommodation  they  afforded. 
A  snuff-taking  friend  once  offered  to  present  the  doc- 
tor with  one  of  His  silk  handkerchiefs  to  carpet  that 
parlour  with.  But  the  doctor's  heart  was  not  to  be 
measured  by  the  size  of  his  rooms,  and  I  knew  that 
he  would  be  a  friend  in  need.  The  concierge  told 
me  that  the  doctor  had  not  gone  out,  and,  in  obe- 
dience to  the  instructions  of  that  functionary,  I 
mounted  the  long  staircase  and  frapped  at  the  door 
of  that  estimable  disciple  of  Galen.  It  was  not  my 
usual  thrice-repeated  stroke  upon  the  door;  it  was  a 
timid  and  uncertain  knock — the  knock  of  a  borrower. 
The  doctor  said  that  he  had  been  rather  short  him- 
self for  a  week  or  two,  but  that  he  should  undoubt- 
edly find  a  letter  in  the  General  Post  that  morning 
that  would  place  him  in  a  condition  to  give  me  a  lift. 
This  was  said  in  a  manner  that  put  me  entirely  at  my 
ease,  and  made  me  feel  that  by  accepting  his  loan  I 
should  be  conferring  an  inestimable  favour  upon 
him.  As  we  walked  towards  the  Rue  Jean  Jacques 
Rousseau,  I  amused  him  with  the  story  of  the  preced- 
ing week's  adventures.  He  laughed  heartily,  and 
after  a  few  minutes  I  joined  with  him,  though  I  must 
say  that  the  events,  as  they  occurred,  did  not  par- 
ticularly impress  me  as  subjects  for  very  hilarious 


HARD  UP  IN  PARIS 

mirth.  The  doctor  inquired  at  the  paste  restante  in 
vain.  His  friends  had  been  as  remiss  as  mine,  and 
we  had  both  got  to  wait  another  week.  The  doctor 
was  not  an  habitually  profane  man,  but  as  we  came 
through  the  court-yard  of  the  post  office,  he  ex- 
pressed his  anxiety  as  to  what  the  devil  we  should  do. 
He  examined  his  purse,  and  found  that  his  available 
assets  amounted  to  a  trifle  more  than  nineteen 
francs.  He  looked  as  troubled  as  he  had  before 
looked  gay.  I  generously  offered  .him  my  four  re- 
maining coppers,  and  told  him  that  I  would  stand  by 
him  as  long  as  he  had  a  centime  in  his  pocket.  Such 
an  exhibition  of  magnanimity  could  not  be  made  in 
vain.  We  stopped  in  front  of  the  church  of  Our 
Lady  of  Victories,  and  took  the  heroic  resolve  to 
club  our  funds  and  go  through  the  week  of  expecta- 
tion together.  And  we  did  it.  I  wish  that  space 
would  allow  of  my  describing  the  achievements  of 
that  week.  Medical  books  were  cast  aside  for  the 
study  of  domestic  economy.  I  do  not  believe  that  a 
similar  sum  of  money  ever  went  so  far  before,  even 
in  Paris.  We  found  a  place  in  a  narrow  street,  near 
the  Odeon,  where  fried  potatoes  were  sold  very 
cheap;  we  bought  our  bread  by  the  loaf,  as  it  was 
cheaper — the  loaves  being  so  long  that  the  doctor 
said  that  he  understood,  when  he  first  saw  them,  why 
bread  was  called  the  staff  of  life.  We  resorted  to  all 
sorts  of  expedients  to  make  a  franc  buy  as  much  as 
possible  of  the  necessaries  of  life.  We  frequented 
with  great  assiduity  all  places  of  public  amusement 
where  there  was  no  fee  for  admission.  The  public 
galleries,  the  libraries,  the  puppet  shows  in  the 
Champs  Elysees,  were  often  honoured  with  our  pres- 

C2333 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

ence.  We  made  a  joke  of  our  necessities,  and  carried 
it  through  to  the  end.  The  next  Tuesday  morning 
found  us,  after  breakfasting,  on  our  way  to  the  post 
office,  with  a  franc  left  in  our  united  treasury.  I  had 
begun  to  give  up  all  hopes  of  our  ever  getting  a  letter 
from  home,  and  insisted  upon  the  doctor's  trying  his 
luck  first.  He  was  successful,  but  the  severest  part  of 
the  joke  came  when  he  found  that  his  letter  (con- 
trary to  all  precedent)  was  not  postpaid.  The  polite 
official  at  the  window  must  have  thirty-two  sous  for 
it,  and  we  had  but  twenty.  Our  laughter  showed  him 
the  whole  state  of  the  case,  and  we  left  him  greatly 
amused  at  our  promises  to  return  soon,  and  get  the 
desirable  prize.  My  application  at  the  banker's  was 
successful,  too,  and  before  noon  we  were  both  pre- 
pared to  laugh  a  siege  to  scorn.  I  paid  the  rosy- 
cheeked  washerwoman,  bought  Marie  a  neat  crucifix 
to  hang  up  in  the  place  of  a  very  rude  one  in  her 
conciergerie,  out  of  sheer  good  humour;  and  that 
evening  the  doctor  and  I  laughed  over  the  recollec- 
tions of  the  week  and  a  good  dinner  in  a  quiet  restau- 
rant in  the  Palais  Royal. 


C234I1 


THE   OLD   CORNER 

THE  human  heart  loves  corners.  The  very 
word  "corner"  is  suggestive  of  snugness  and 
cosy  comfort,  and  he  who  has  no  liking  for  them  is 
something  more  or  less  than  mortal.  I  have  seen 
people  whose  ideas  of  comfort  were  singularly  crude 
and  imperfect;  who  thought  that  it  consisted  in  keep- 
ing a  habitation  painfully  clean,  and  in  having  every 
book  or  paper  that  might  give  token  of  the  place 
being  the  dwelling  of  a  human  being,  carefully  out  of 
sight.  We  have  great  cause  for  thankfulness  that 
such  people  are  not  common,  (for  a  little  wholesome 
negligence  is  by  no  means  an  unpleasant  thing,)  so 
that  we  can  say  that  mankind  generally  likes  to  snug- 
gify  itself,  and  is  therefore  fond  of  a  corner.  This 
natural  fondness  is  manifested  by  the  child  with  his 
playthings  and  infantile  sports,  in  one  of  which,  at 
least,  the  attractions  of  corners  for  the  feline  race 
are  brought  strongly  before  his  inquisitive  mind. 
And  how  is  this  liking  strengthened  and  built  up  as 
the  child  increases  in  secular  knowledge,  and  learns 
in  the  course  of  his  poetical  and  historical  researches 
all  about  the  personal  history  of  Master  John 
Homer,  whose  sedentary  habits  and  manducation  of 
festive  pastry  are  famous  wherever  the  language  of 
Shakespeare  and  Milton  is  spoken ! 

This  love  of  nooks  and  corners  is  especially  ob- 
servable in  those  who  are  obliged  to  live  in  style  and 

C235I] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

splendour.  Many  a  noble  English  family  has  been 
glad  to  escape  from  the  bondage  of  its  rank,  and  has 
found  more  real  comfort  in  the  confinement  of  a 
Parisian  entresol  than  amid  the  gloomy  grandeur  of 
its  London  home.  Those  who  are  condemned  to 
dwell  in  palaces  bear  witness  to  this  natural  love  of 
snugness,  by  choosing  some  quiet  sunny  corner  in 
their  marble  halls,  and  making  it  as  comfortable  as  if 
it  were  a  cosy  cottage.  Napoleon  and  Eugenie  de- 
light to  escape  from  the  magnificence  of  the  Tuileries 
to  that  quiet  and  homelike  refuge  for  people  who 
are  burdened  with  imperial  dignity,  amid  the  thick 
foliage  and  green  alleys  of  St.  Cloud.  Even  in  that 
mighty  maze,  the  Vatican,  the  rooms  inhabited  by 
the  Sovereign  Pontiff  are  remarkably  comfortable 
and  unpalatial,  and  prove  the  advantages  of  small- 
ness  and  simplicity  over  gilding  and  grandeur,  for 
the  ordinary  purposes  of  life.  An  American  gentle- 
man once  called  on  the  great  and  good  Cardinal 
Cheverus,  and  while  talking  with  him  of  his  old 
friends  in  America,  said  that  the  contrast  between 
the  Cardinal's  position  in  the  episcopal  palace  of 
Bordeaux  and  in  his  former  humble  residence  when 
he  was  Bishop  of  Boston,  was  a  very  striking  one. 
The  humble  and  pious  prelate  smiled,  and  taking  his 
visitor  by  the  arm,  led  him  from  the  stately  hall  in 
which  they  were  conversing,  into  a  narrow  room 
furnished  in  a  style  of  austere  simplicity:  "The 
palace,"  said  he,  "which  you  have  seen  and  admired 
is  the  residence  of  the  Cardinal  Archbishop  of  Bor- 
deaux; but  this  little  chamber  is  where  John  Cheverus 
lives." 

Literary  men  and  statesmen  have  always  coveted 

£236;] 


THE  OLD  CORNER 

the  repose  of  a  corner  where  they  might  be  undis- 
turbed by  the  wranglings  of  the  world.  Twicken- 
ham, and  Lausanne,  and  Ferney,  and  Rydal  Mount 
have  become  as  shrines  to  which  the  lover  of 
books  would  fain  make  pilgrimages.  Have  we  not  a 
Sunnyside  and  an  Idlewild  even  in  this  new  land  of 
ours !  Cicero,  in  spite  of  his  high  opinion  of  Marcus 
Tullius,  and  his  thirst  for  popular  applause,  often 
grew  tired  of  urban  life,  and  was  glad  to  forsake  the 
Senatus  populusque  Romanus  for  the  quiet  of  his 
snug  villa  in  a  corner  of  the  hill  country  overlooking 
Frascati.  And  did  not  our  own  Tully  love  to  fling 
aside  the  burden  of  his  power,  and  find  his  Tusculum 
on  the  old  South  Shore?  In  the  Senate  Chamber  or 
the  Department  of  State  you  might  see  the  Defender 
of  the  Constitution,  but  it  was  at  Marshfield  that 
Webster  really  lived.  Horace  loved  good  company 
and  the  entertainment  of  his  wealthy  patrons  and 
friends,  but  he  loved  snugness  and  quiet  even  more. 
In  one  of  his  odes  he  apostrophizes  his  friend  Sep- 
timius,  and  describes  to  him  the  delight  he  takes  in 
the  repose  of  his  Tiburtine  retreat  from  the  bustle  of 
the  metropolis,  saying  that  of  all  places  in  the  world 
that  corner  is  the  most  smiling  and  grateful  to 
him:— 

Ille  terrarum  mihi  praeter  omnes 
Angulus  ridet. 

If  we  look  into  our  hearts,  I  think  we  shall  most 
of  us  find  that  we  have  a  clinging  attachment  to  some 
favourite  corner,  as  well  as  Mr.  Horatius  Flaccus. 
There  is  at  least  one  corner  in  the  city  of  Boston, 
which  has  many  pleasant  associations  for  the  lover 

C2373 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

of  literature.  Allusion  was  made  a  few  days  since, 
in  an  evening  paper,  to  the  well-known  fact  that  the 
old  building  at  the  corner  of  Washington  and  School 
Streets  was  built  in  1713,  and  is  therefore  older  by 
seventeen  years  than  the  Old  South  Church.  That 
little  paragraph  reminded  me  of  some  passages  in 
the  history  of  that  ancient  edifice  related  to  me  by  an 
ancestor  of  mine,  for  whom  the  place  had  an  almost 
romantic  charm. 

The  old  building  (my  grandfather  used  to  tell 
me)  was  originally  a  dwelling-house.  It  had  the 
high  wainscots,  the  broad  staircases,  the  carved  cor- 
nices, and  all  the  other  blessed  old  peculiarities  of 
the  age  in  which  it  was  built,  which  we  irreverently 
have  improved  away.  One  hundred  years  ago  the 
old  corner  was  considered  rather  an  aristocratic  place 
of  residence.  It  was  slightly  suburban  in  its  position, 
for  the  town  of  Boston  had  an  affection  for  Copp's 
Hill,  and  the  inhabitants  clustered  about  that  sacred 
eminence  as  if  the  southern  parts  of  their  territory 
were  a  quicksand.  Trees  were  not  uncommon  in  the 
vicinity  of  the  foot  of  School  Street  in  those  days, 
and  no  innovating  Hathorne  had  disturbed  the  quiet 
of  the  place  with  countless  omnibuses.  The  old  cor- 
ner was  then  occupied  by  an  English  gentleman 
named  Barmesyde,  who  gave  good  dinners,  and  was 
on  intimate  terms  with  the  colonial  governor.  My 
venerated  relative,  to  whom  I  have  already  alluded, 
enjoyed  his  friendship,  and  in  his  latter  days  de- 
lighted to  talk  of  him,  and  tell  his  story  to  those  who 
had  heard  it  so  often,  that  Hugh  Greville  Barme- 
syde, Esquire,  seemed  like  a  companion  of  their  own 
young  days. 


THE  OLD  CORNER 

Old  Barmesyde  sprang  from  an  ancient  Somerset- 
shire family,  from  which  he  inherited  a  considerable 
property,  and  a  remarkable  energy  of  character.  He 
increased  his  wealth  during  a  residence  of  many 
years  in  Antigua,  at  the  close  of  which  he  relin- 
quished his  business,  and  returned  to  England  to 
marry  a  beautiful  English  lady  to  whom  he  had 
engaged  himself  in  the  West  Indies.  He  arrived  in 
England  the  day  after  the  funeral  of  his  betrothed, 
who  had  fallen  a  victim  to  intermittent  fever.  Many 
of  his  relations  had  died  in  his  absence,  and  he  found 
himself  like  a  stranger  in  the  very  place  where  he  had 
hoped  to  taste  again  the  joys  of  home.  The  death  of 
the  lady  he  loved  so  dearly,  and  the  changes  in  his 
circle  of  friends,  were  so  depressing  to  him,  that  he 
resolved  to  return  to  the  West  Indies.  He  thought 
it  would  be  easier  for  him  to  continue  in  the  associa- 
tions he  had  formed  there  than  to  recover  from  the 
shock  his  visit  to  England  had  given  him.  So  he 
took  passage  in  a  brig  from  Bristol  to  Antigua,  and 
said  farewell  forever,  as  he  supposed,  to  his  native 
land.  Before  half  the  voyage  was  accomplished,  the 
vessel  was  disabled:  as  Mr.  Choate  would  express  it, 
a  north-west  gale  inflicted  upon  her  a  serious,  an  im- 
medicable injury;  and  she  floated  a  wreck  upon  the 
foamy  and  uneven  surface  of  the  Atlantic.  She  was 
fallen  in  with  by  another  British  vessel,  bound  for 
Boston,  which  took  off  her  company,  and  with  the 
renewal  of  the  storm  she  foundered  before  the  eyes 
of  those  who  had  so  lately  risked  their  lives  upon  her 
seaworthiness.  When  Mr.  Barmesyde  arrived  in 
Boston,  he  found  an  old  friend  in  the  governor  of 
the  Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  Governor 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

Pownall  had  but  lately  received  his  appointment 
from  the  Crown,  and  being  a  comparative  stranger 
in  Boston,  he  was  as  glad  to  see  Mr.  Barmesyde  as 
the  latter  was  to  see  him.  It  was  several  months  be- 
fore an  opportunity  to  reach  the  West  Indies  offered 
itself,  and  when  one  did  occur,  Mr.  Barmesyde  only 
used  it  to  communicate  with  his  agent  at  Antigua. 
He  had  given  up  all  ideas  of  returning  thither,  and 
had  settled  down,  with  his  negro  servant  Cato,  to 
housekeeping  at  the  corner  of  School  Street,  within 
a  few  doors  of  his  gubernatorial  friend. 

Governor  Pownall's  term  of  office  was  not  a  long 
one,  but  even  when  he  was  removed,  Mr.  Barmesyde 
stuck  faithfully  to  the  old  corner.  He  had  found 
many  warm  friends  here,  and  could  no  longer  con- 
sider himself  alone  in  the  world.  He  was  a  man  of 
good  natural  powers,  and  of  thorough  education.  He 
was  one  of  those  who  seem  never  to  lose  any  thing 
that  they  have  once  acquired.  In  person  he  was  tall 
and  comely,  and  my  grandfather  said  that  he  some- 
what resembled  General  Washington  as  he  appeared 
twenty-five  years  later,  excepting  that  Mr.  Barme- 
syde's  countenance  was  more  jolly  and  port-winy. 
From  all  I  can  learn,  his  face,  surmounted  by  that 
carefully-powdered  head  of  hair,  must  have  resem- 
bled a  red  brick  house  after  a  heavy  fall  of  snow.  If 
Hugh  Barmesyde  had  a  fault,  I  am  afraid  it  was  a 
fondness  for  good  living.  He  attended  to  his  mar- 
keting in  person,  assisted  by  his  faithful  Cato,  who 
was  as  good  a  judge  in  such  matters  as  his  master, 
and  who  used  to  vindicate  the  excellence  of  his  mas- 
ter's fare  by  eating  until  he  was  black  in  the  face. 
For  years  there  were  few  vessels  arrived  from  Eng- 


THE  OLD  CORNER 

land  without  bringing  choice  wines  to  moisten  the 
alimentary  canal  of  Mr.  Barmesyde.  The  Windward 
Isles  contributed  bountifully  to  keep  alight  the  festive 
flame  that  blazed  in  his  cheery  countenance,  and  to 
make  his  flip  and  punch  the  very  best  that  the  prov- 
ince could  produce.  Every  Sunday  morning  Mr. 
Barmesyde's  best  buckles  sparkled  in  the  sunbeams 
as  he  walked  up  School  Street  to  the  King's  Chapel. 
Not  that  he  was  an  eminently  religious  man,  but  he 
regarded  religion  as  an  institution  that  deserved  en- 
couragement for  the  sake  of  maintaining  a  proper 
balance  in  society.  The  quiet  order  and  dignity  of 
public  worship  pleased  him,  the  liturgy  gratified  his 
taste,  and  so  Sunday  after  Sunday  his  big  manly  voice 
headed  the  responses,  and  told  that  its  possessor  had 
done  many  things  that  he  ought  not  to  have  done, 
and  had  left  undone  a  great  many  that  he  ought  to 
have  done. 

Mr.  Barmesyde  was  not  a  mere  feeder  on  good 
things,  however;  he  had  a  cultivated  taste  for  litera- 
ture, and  his  invoices  of  wine  were  frequently  accom- 
panied by  parcels  of  new  books.  The  old  gentleman 
took  a  great  delight  in  the  English  literature  of  that 
day.  Fielding  and  Smollett  were  writing  then,  and 
no  one  took  a  keener  pleasure  in  their  novels  than  he. 
He  imported,  as  he  used  to  boast,  the  first  copy  of 
Dr.  Johnson's  Dictionary  that  ever  came  to  America, 
and  was  never  tired  of  reading  that  stately  and 
pathetic  preface,  or  of  searching  for  the  touches  of 
satire  and  individual  prejudice  that  abound  in  that 
entertaining  work.  His  well-worn  copy  of  the  Spec- 
tator, in  eight  duodecimo  volumes,  presented  by  him 
to  my  grandfather,  now  graces  one  of  my  book 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

shelves.  His  books  were  always  at  the  service  of  his 
friends,  who  availed  themselves  of  the  old  gentle- 
man's kindness  to  such  an  extent  that  his  collection 
might  have  been  called  a  circulating  library.  But  it 
was  not  merely  for  the  frequent  "feast  of  reason  and 
flow  of  soul"  that  his  friends  were  indebted  to  him. 
He  was  the  very  incarnation  of  hospitality.  I  am 
afraid  that  my  excellent  grandparent  had  an  uncom- 
mon admiration  for  this  trait  in  the  old  fellow's 
character,  for  a  frequent  burning  twinge  in  one  of 
the  toes  of  my  right  foot,  and  occasionally  in  the 
knuckles  of  my  left  hand,  reminds  me  of  his  fondness 
for  keeping  his  legs  under  Mr.  Barmesyde's  festive 
mahogany.  A  few  years  ago,  when  a  new  floor  was 
laid  in  the  cellar  at  the  old  corner,  a  large  number  of 
empty  bottles  was  discovered,  whose  appearance  bore 
witness  to  the  previous  good  character  of  the  place 
as  a  cellar.  Some  labels  were  also  found  bearing 
dates  like  1697,  1708,  1721,  &c.  To  this  day  the 
occupants  of  the  premises  take  pleasure  in  showing 
the  dark  wine  stains  on  the  old  stairs  leading  to  the 
cellar. 

But  Mr.  Barmesyde's  happiness,  like  the  gioia  de 
profani,  which  we  have  all  heard  the  chorus  in  the 
last  scene  of  Lucrezia  Borgia  discordantly  allude  to, 
was  but  transient.  The  dispute  which  had  been 
brewing  for  years  between  the  colonies  and  the 
mother  country,  began  to  grow  unpleasantly  warm. 
Mr.  B.  was  a  stanch  loyalist.  He  allowed  that  in- 
justice had  been  done  to  the  colonies,  but  still  he 
could  not  throw  off  his  allegiance  to  his  most  re- 
ligious and  gracious  king,  George  III.,  Defender  of 
the  Faith.  He  was  ready  to  do  and  to  suffer  as 

£242] 


THE  OLD  CORNER 

much  for  his  principles  as  the  most  ardent  of  the  re- 
volutionists. And  he  was  not  alone  in  his  loyalty. 
There  were  many  old-fashioned  conservative  people 
in  this  revolutionary  and  ismatic  city  in  those  days  as 
well  as  now.  The  publication  in  this  city  of  a  trans- 
lation of  De  Maistre's  great  defence  of  the  mo- 
narchical principle  of  government,  (the  Essay  on  the 
Generative  Principle  of  Political  Constitutions,)  and 
of  the  late  Mr.  Oliver's  "Puritan  Commonwealth," 
proves  that  the  surrender  of  Cornwallis  and  the 
formation  of  the  Federal  Constitution  did  not  de- 
stroy the  confidence  of  a  good  many  persons  in  the 
truth  of  the  principles  on  which  the  loyalists  took 
their  stand.  The  unfortunate  occurrence  in  State 
Street,  March  5,  1770,  gave  Mr.  B.  great  pain.  He 
regretted  the  bloodshed,  but  he  regretted  more 
deeply  to  see  many  persons  so  blinded  by  their  hatred 
of  the  king's  most  excellent  majesty,  as  to  defend 
and  praise  the  action  of  a  lawless  mob  just  punished 
for  their  riotous  conduct.  The  throwing  overboard 
of  the  tea  excited  his  indignation.  He  stigmatized 
it  (and  not  without  some  reason  on  his  side)  as  a 
wanton  and  cowardly  act, — a  destruction  of  the 
property  of  parties  against  whom  the  town  of  Bos- 
ton had  no  cause  of  complaint, — a  deed  which  proved 
how  little  real  regard  for  justice  and  honour  there 
might  be  among  those  who  were  the  loudest  in  their 
shrieks  for  freedom.  Of  course  he  could  not  give 
utterance  to  these  sentiments  without  exciting  the  ire 
of  many  people;  and  feeling  that  he  could  no  longer 
safely  remain  in  this  country,  he  concluded  to  return 
to  England.  In  the  spring  of  1774,  Hugh  Greville 
Barmesyde  gave  his  last  dinner  to  a  few  of  the  faith- 

O433 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

ful  at  the  old  corner,  and  sailed  the  next  day  with  a 
sorrowing  heart  and  his  trusty  Cato  for  the  land 
of  his  birth.  He  spent  the  remainder  of  his  days  in 
London,  where  he  died  in  1795.  He  was  interred 
in  the  vault  belonging  to  his  family,  in  the  north 
transept  of  the  Parish  Church  of  Shepton  Mallet,  in 
Somersetshire,  where  there  is  still  a  handsome  tablet 
commemorating  his  many  virtues  and  the  inconsola- 
ble grief  of  the  nephews  and  nieces  whom  his  decease 
enriched. 

Some  of  the  less  orderly  "liberty  boys"  bore  wit- 
ness to  the  imperfect  sympathy  that  existed  between 
them  and  the  late  occupant  of  the  old  corner,  by 
breaking  sundry  panes  of  glass  in  the  parlour  win- 
dows the  night  after  his  departure.  The  old  house, 
during  the  revolutionary  struggle,  followed  the  com- 
mon prosaic  course  of  ordinary  occupancy.  There 
was  "marrying  and  giving  in  marriage"  under  that 
steep  and  ancient  roof  in  those  days,  and  troops  of 
clamorous  children  used  to  play  upon  the  broad  stone 
steps,  and  tarnish  the  brasses  that  Cato  was  wont  to 
keep  so  clean  and  bright.  In  the  latter  part  of  the 
last  century  the  old  house  underwent  a  painful  trans- 
formation. An  enterprising  apothecary  perverted  it 
to  the  uses  of  trade,  and  decorated  its  new  windows 
with  the  legitimate  jars  of  various  coloured  fluids. 
It  is  now  nearly  half  a  century  since  it  became  a  book- 
store. Far  be  it  from  me  to  offer  any  disturbance  to 
the  modesty  of  my  excellent  friends,  Messrs.  Tick- 
nor  and  Fields,  by  enlarging  upon  the  old  corner  in 
its  present  estate.  It  were  useless  to  write  about  any 
thing  so  familiar.  They  are  young  men  yet,  and 
must  pardon  me  if  I  have  used  the  prerogative  of  age 

£24411 


THE  OLD  CORNER 

and  spoken  too  freely  about  their  old  establishment 
and  its  reminiscences.  I  love  the  old  corner,  and 
should  not  hesitate  to  apply  to  it  the  words  of  Horace 
which  I  have  quoted  above.  I  love  its  freedom  from 
pretence  and  ostentation.  New  books  seem  more 
grateful  to  me  there  than  elsewhere ;  for  the  dinginess 
of  Paternoster  Row  harmonizes  better  with  litera- 
ture than  the  plate  glass  and  gairish  glitter  of  Pic- 
cadilly or  Regent  Street. 

The  large  looking-glass  which  stands  near  the 
Washington  Street  entrance  to  the  old  corner  used 
to  adorn  the  dining-room  where  Mr.  Barmesyde 
gave  so  many  feasts.  It  is  the  only  relic  of  that 
worthy  gentleman  now  remaining  under  that  roof. 
If  that  glass  could  only  publish  its  reflexions  during 
the  past  century,  what  an  entertaining  work  on  the 
curiosities  of  literature  and  of  life  it  might  make  1 
It  is  no  ordinary  place  that  may  boast  of  having  been 
the  familiar  resort  of  people  like  Judge  Story,  Mr. 
Otis,  Channing,  Kirkland,  Webster,  Choate,  Everett, 
Charles  Kemble  and  the  elder  Vandenhoff  with  their 
gifted  daughters,  Ellen  Tree,  the  Woods,  Finn, 
Dickens,  Thackeray,  James.  Bancroft,  Prescott, 
Emerson,  Brownson,  Dana,  Halleck,  Bryant,  Haw- 
thorne, Longfellow,  Holmes,  Lowell,  Willis,  Bayard 
Taylor,  Whipple,  Parkman,  Hilliard,  Sumner,  Par- 
sons, Sprague,  and  so  many  others  whose  names  will 
live  in  literature  and  history.  It  is  a  very  pleasant 
thing  to  see  literary  men  at  their  ease,  as  they  always 
are  around  those  old  counters.  It  is  a  relief  to  find 
that  they  can  throw  off  at  times  the  dignity  and  re- 
straint of  authorship.  It  is  pleasant  to  see  the  lec- 
turer and  the  divine  put  away  their  tiresome 

£2453 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

earnestness  and  severe  morality,  and  come  down  to 
the  jest  of  the  day.  It  refreshes  one  to  know  that 
Mr.  Emerson  is  not  always  orphic,  and  that  the 
severely  scholastic  Everett  can  forget  his  elegant  and 
harmonious  sentences,  and  descend  to  common  prose. 
For  we  can  no  more  bear  to  think  of  an  orator  living 
unceasingly  in  oratory  than  we  could  of  Signorina 
Zanfretta  being  obliged  to  remain  constantly  poised 
on  the  corde  tendue. 

The  bust  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  has  filled  the  space 
above  the  mirror  I  have  spoken  of,  for  many  years. 
It  is  a  fine  work  of  Chantrey's,  and  a  good  likeness 
of  that  head  of  Sir  Walter's,  so  many  stories  high 
that  one  can  never  wonder  where  all  his  novels  came 
from.  Except  this  specimen  of  the  plastic  art,  and 
one  of  Professor  Agassiz,  there  is  little  that  is  orna- 
mental in  the  ancient  haunt.  The  green  curtain  that 
decorates  the  western  corner  of  the  establishment  is 
a  comparatively  modern  institution.  It  was  found 
necessary  to  fence  off  that  portion  of  the  shop  for 
strict  business  purposes.  The  profane  converse  of 
the  world  cannot  penetrate  those  folds.  Into  that 
sanctissimum  sanctissimorum  no  joke,  however  good, 
may  enter.  What  a  strange  dispensation  of  Provi- 
dence is  it,  that  a  man  should  have  been  for  years 
enjoying  the  good  society  that  abounds  at  that  cor- 
ner, and  yet  should  seem  to  have  so  little  liking  for  a 
quiet  jest  as  the  estimable  person  who  conceals  his 
seriousness  behind  that  green  curtain ! 

But  every  thing  must  yield  to  the  law  of  nature, 

and  the  old  corner  must  share  the  common  lot.   Some 

inauspicious  night,  the  fire-alarm  will  sound  for  Dis- 

.tricjt  III.;  hoarse  voices  will  echo  at  the  foot  o.f 


THE  OLD  CORNER 

School  Street,  calling  earnestly  on  No.  3  to  "hold 
on,"  and  No.  9  to  "play  away";  where  erst  good 
liquor  was  wont  to  abound  water  will  more  abound, 
and  when  the  day  dawns  Mr.  Barmesyde's  old  house 
will  be  an  unsightly  ruin, — there  will  be  mourning 
and  desolation  among  the  lovers  of  literature,  and 
wailing  in  the  insurance  offices  in  State  Street.  When 
the  blackened  ruins  are  cleared  away,  boys  will  pick 
up  scraps  of  scorched  manuscripts,  and  sell  them 
piecemeal  as  parts  of  the  original  copy  of  Hiawatha, 
or  Evangeline,  or  the  Scarlet  Letter.  In  the  fulness 
of  time,  a  tall,  handsome  stone  or  iron  building  will 
rise  on  that  revered  site,  and  we  lovers  of  the  past 
shall  try  to  invest  it  with  something  of  the  unpre- 
tending dignity  and  genial  associations  of  the  present 
venerable  pile,  which  will  then  be  cherished  among 
our  most  precious  memories. 


SACRED   TO   THE   MEMORY 
OF  THEATRE  ALLEY 

WE  are  all  associationists.  There  is  no  man 
who  does  not  believe  in  association  in  some 
degree.  For  myself,  I  am  firm  in  the  faith.  Let  me 
not  be  misunderstood,  however;  I  do  not  mean  that 
principle  of  association  which  the  late  Mr.  Fourier 
advocated  in  France,  and  Mr.  Brisbane  in  America. 
I  do  not  believe  in  the  Utopian  schemes  which  have 
been  ground  out  of  the  brains  of  philosophers  who 
mistake  vagueness  and  impracticability  for  sub- 
limity, and  which  they  have  misnamed  association. 
The  principle  of  association  to  which  I  pay  homage 
is  one  which  finds  a  home  in  every  human  heart.  It 
is  that  principle  of  our  nature  which,  when  the  be- 
reaved Queen  Constance  was  mourning  for  her 
absent  child,  "stuffed  out  his  vacant  garments  with 
his  form."  It  is  that  principle  which  makes  a  man 
love  the  scenes  of  his  boyhood,  and  which  brings 
tears  to  the  eyes  of  the  traveller  in  a  foreign  land, 
when  he  hears  a  familiar  strain  from  a  hand  organ, 
however  harsh  and  out  of  tune.  Even  the  brute 
creation  seems  to  share  in  it;  the  cat  is  sure  to  be 
found  in  her  favourite  place  at  the  fireside,  while  the 
tea  kettle  makes  music  on  the  hob;  the  dog,  too,  (let 
Hercules  himself  do  what  he  may,)  will  not  only 
have  his  day,  but  will  have  his  chosen  corner  for  re- 
pose, and  will  stick  to  it,  however  tempting  you  may 

[248] 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF  THEATRE  ALLEY 

make  other  places  by  a  superabundance  of  door  mats 
and  other  canine  furniture.  And  the  tired  cart  horse, 
when  his  day's  labour  is  over,  and  he  finds  himself 
once  more  in  the  familiar  stall,  with  his  provender 
before  him — do  you  not  suppose  that  the  associa- 
tions of  equine  comfort  by  which  he  is  surrounded 
are  dearer  to  him  than  any  hopes  of  the  luxury  and 
splendour  of  Her  Britannic  Majesty's  stables  at 
Windsor  could  be?  Ask  him  if  he  would  leave  his 
present  peck  of  oats  for  the  chances  of  royal  service, 
and  a  red-waistcoated,  white-top-booted  groom  to 
wait  upon  him,  and  I  will  warrant  you  that  he  will 
answer  nay! 

There  is  no  nation  nor  people  that  is  free  from 
this  bondage  of  association.  We  treasure  General 
Jackson's  garments  with  respectful  care  in  a  glass 
case  in  the  Patent  Office  at  Washington;  in  the 
Louvre,  you  shall  find  preserved  the  crown  of 
Charlemagne  and  the  old  gray  coat  of  the  first  Na- 
poleon; and  at  Westminster  Abbey,  (if  you  have  the 
money  to  pay  your  admission  fee,)  you  may  see  the 
plain  old  oaken  chair  in  which  the  crowned  monarchs 
of  a  thousand  years  have  sat.  Go  to  Rome,  and 
stand  "at  the  base  of  Pompey's  statua,"  and  associa- 
tion shall  carry  you  back  in  imagination  to  the  time 
when  the  mighty  Julius  fell.  Stand  upon  the  grassy 
mounds  of  Tusculum,  and  you  will  find  yourself 
glowing  with  enthusiasm  for  Cicero,  and  wonder  how 
you  could  have  grown  so  sleepy  over  Quousque  tan- 
demr&c.,  inyourschool-boydays.  Climb  uptheTraste- 
verine  steep  to  where  the  convent  of  San  Onofrio 
suns  itself  in  the  bright  blue  air  of  Rome,  and  while 
the  monks  are  singing  the  divine  office  where  the 

C2493 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

bones  of  Tasso  repose,  you  may  fill  your  mind  with 
memories  of  the  bard  of  the  crusades,  in  the  cham- 
ber where  his  weary  soul  found  the  release  it  craved. 
Go  to  that  fair  capital  which  seems  to  have  hidden 
itself  among  the  fertile  hills  of  Tuscany;  walk 
through  its  pleasant  old  streets,  and  you  shall  find 
yourself  the  slave  of  many  pleasing  associations.  The 
very  place  where  Dante  was  wont  to  stand  and  gaze 
at  that  wondrous  dome  which  Michel  Angelo  said 
he  was  unwilling  to  copy  and  unable  to  excel,  is 
marked  by  an  inscription  in  the  pavement.  Every 
street  has  its  associations  that  appeal  to  your  love  of 
the  beautiful  or  the  heroic.  Walk  out  into  the  lively 
streets  of  that  city  which  stands  at  the  head  of  the 
world's  civilization,  and  you  are  overwhelmed  with 
historic  associations.  You  seem  to  hear  the  clatter 
of  armed  heels  in  some  of  those  queer  old  alleys,  and 
the  vision  of  Godfrey  or  St.  Louis,  armed  for  the 
holy  war,  would  not  astonish  you.  The  dim  and 
stately  halls  of  the  palaces  are  eloquent  of  power, 
and  you  almost  expect  to  see  the  thin,  pale,  thought- 
ful face  of  the  great  Richelieu  at  every  corner.  Over 
whole  districts,  rebellion,  and  anarchy,  and  infidelity, 
once  wrote  the  history  of  their  sway  in  blood,  and 
even  now,  the  names  of  the  streets,  as  you  read  them, 
seem  to  fill  you  with  terrible  mementoes. 

But  to  us,  Americans,  connected  as  we  are  with 
England  in  our  civilization  and  our  literature,  how 
full  of  thrilling  associations  is  London!  From 
Whitehall,  where  Puritanism  damned  itself  by  the 
murder  of  a  king,  to  Eastcheap,  where  Mistress 
Quickly  served  Sir  John  with  his  sherris-sack;  from 
St.  Saviour's  Church,  where  Massinger  and  Fletcher 

[250: 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF  THEATRE  ALLEY 

lie  in  one  grave,  to  Milton's  tomb  in  St.  Giles's,  Crip- 
plegate,  there  is  hardly  a  street,  or  court,  or  lane,  or 
alley,  which  does  not  appeal  by  some  association  to 
the  student  of  English  history  or  literature.  He 
perambulates  the  Temple  Gardens  with  Chaucer;  he 
hears  the  partisans  of  the  houses  of  York  and  Lan- 
caster, as  they  profane  the  silence  of  that  scholastic 
spot;  he  walks  Fleet  Street,  and  disputes  in  Bolt 
Court  with  Dr.  Johnson;  he  smokes  in  the  coffee- 
houses of  Covent  Garden  with'Dryden  and  Pope, 
and  the  wits  of  their  day;  he  makes  morning  calls  in 
Leicester  Square  and  its  neighbourhood,  on  Sir  Philip 
Sidney,  Hogarth,  Reynolds,  and  Newton;  he  buys 
gloves  and  stockings  at  Defoe's  shop  in  Cornhill; 
and  makes  excursions  with  Dicky  Steele  out  to  Ken* 
sington,  to  see  Mr.  Addison.  Drury  Lane,  despite 
its  gin,  and  vice,  and  squalour,  has  its  associations. 
The  old  theatre  is  filled  with  them.  They  show  you, 
in  the  smoky  green-room,  the  chairs  which  once  were 
occupied  by  Siddons  and  Kemble ;  the  seat  of  Byron 
by  the  fireside  in  the  days  of  his  trusteeship;  the  mir- 
rors in  which  so  many  dramatic  worthies  viewed 
themselves,  before  they  were  called  to  achieve  their 
greatest  triumphs. 

Every  where  you  find  men  acknowledging  in  their 
actions  their  allegiance  to  this  great  natural  law. 
Our  own  city,  too,  has  its  associations.  Who  can 
pass  by  that  venerable  building  in  Union  Street, 
which,  like  a  deaf  and  dumb  beggar,  wears  a  tablet 
of  its  age  upon  its  unsightly  front,  without  recalling 
some  of  the  events  that  have  taken  place,  some  of  the 
scenes  which  that  venerable  edifice  has  looked  down 
upon,  since  its  solid  timbers  were  jointed  in  the  year 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

of  salvation  1685?  Who  can  enter  Faneuil  Hall 
without  a  quickening  of  his  pulse?  Who  can  walk  by 
the  old  Hancock  House,  and  not  look  up  at  it  as  if 
he  expected  to  see  old  John  (the  best  writer  on  the 
subject  of  American  independence)  standing  at  the 
door  in  his  shad-bellied  coat,  knee-breeches,  and  pow- 
dered wig?  Who  can  look  at  the  Old  South  Church 
without  thinking  of  the  part  it  played  in  the  revolu- 
tion, and  of  the  time  when  it  was  obliged  to  yield  its 
unwilling  horsepitality  to  the  British  cavalry?  Bos- 
ton is  by  no  means  deficient  in  associations.  Go  to 
Brattle  Street,  to  Copp's  Hill,  to  Mount  Washing- 
ton, to  Deer  Island,— though  it  must  be  acknow- 
ledged, the  only  association  connected  with  the 
last-named  place  is  the  Provident  Association. 

If  there  be  a  fault  in  the  Yankee  character,  I  fear 
it  is  a  lack  of  sufficient  respect  for  the  memory  of  the 
past.  Nature  will  have  her  way  with  us,  however 
we  may  try  to  resist  her  and  trample  old  recollections 
under  foot.  We  worship  prosperity  too  much;  and 
the  wide,  straight  streets  of  western  cities,  with  the 
telegraph  posts  standing  like  sentinels  on  the  edge  of 
the  sidewalks,  and  a  general  odour  of  pork-packing 
and  new  houses  pervading  the  atmosphere,  seem  to 
our  acquisitive  sense  more  beautiful  than  the  sculp- 
tured arch,  the  moss-grown  tower,  the  quaint  gable, 
and  all  the  summer  fragrance  of  the  gardens  of  the 
Tuileries  or  the  Unterdenlinden.  I  am  afraid  that 
we  almost  deserve  to  be  classed  with  those  who  (as 
Mr.  Thackeray  says)  "have  no  reverence  except  for 
prosperity,  and  no  eye  for  any  thing  but  success." 

Many  are  kindled  into  enthusiasm  by  meditating 
upon  the  future  of  this  our  country,— "the  newest  born 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF  THEATRE  ALLEY 

of  nations,  the  latest  hope  of  mankind,"— but  for 
myself  I  love  better  to  dwell  on  the  sure  and  unalter- 
able past,  than  to  speculate  upon  the  glories  of  the 
coming  years.  While  I  was  young,  I  liked,  when  at 
sea,  to  stand  on  the  top-gallant  forecastle,  and  see 
the  proud  ship  cut  her  way  through  the  waves  that 
playfully  covered  me  with  spray;  but  of  late  years 
my  pleasure  has  been  to  lean  over  the  taffrail  and 
muse  upon  the  subsiding  foam  of  the  vessel's  wake. 
The  recollection  even  of  storms  and  dangers  is  to 
me  more  grateful  than  the  most  joyful  anticipation 
of  a  fair  wind  and  the  expected  port.  With  these 
feelings,  I  cannot  help  being  moved  when  I  see  so 
many  who  try  to  deaden  their  natural  sensibility  to 
old  associations.  When  the  old  Province  House 
passed  into  the  hands  of  the  estimable  Mr.  Ordway, 
I  congratulated  him  on  his  success,  but  I  mourned 
over  the  dark  fate  of  that  ancient  mansion.  I  re- 
spected it  even  in  its  fallen  state  as  an  inn,  — for  it 
retained  much  of  its  old  dignity,  and  the  ghosts  of 
Andros  and  his  predecessors  seemed  to  brush  by  you 
in  its  high  wainscoted  passages  and  on  its  broad  stair- 
cases; but  it  did  seem  the  very  ecstasy  of  sacrilege  to 
transform  it  into  a  concert-room.  I  rejoiced,  how- 
ever, a  few  years  since,  when  the  birthplace  of  B. 
Franklin,  in  Milk  Street,  was  distinguished  by  an 
inscription  to  that  effect  in  letters  of  enduring  .stone. 
That  was  a  concession  to  the  historic  associations  of 
that  locality  which  the  most  sanguine  could  hardly 
have  expected  from  the  satinetters  of  Milk  Street. 

But  I  am  forgetting  my  subject,  and  using  up  my 
time  and  ink  in  the  prolegomena.  My  philosophy  of 
association  received  a  severe  blow  last  week.  It  was 

C2533 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

a  pleasant  day,  and  I  hobbled  out  on  rny  gouty  tim- 
bers for  a  walk.  I  wandered  into  Franklin  Place, 
but  it  was  not  the  Franklin  Place  of  my  youth.  The 
rude  hand  of  public  improvement  had  not  been  kept 
even  from  that  row  of  houses  which,  when  I  was  a 
boy,  was  thought  an  ornament  to  our  city,  and  was 
dignified  with  the  name  of  the  Tontine  Buildings. 
Franklin  Place  looked  as  if  two  or  three  of  its  front 
teeth  had  been  knocked  out.  I  walked  on,  and  my 
sorrow  and  dismay  were  increased  to  find  that  the 
last  vestige  of  Theatre  Alley  had  disappeared.  It 
was  bad  enough  when  the  old  theatre  and  the  resi- 
dence of  the  Catholic  bishops  of  Boston  were  swept 
away :  I  still  clung  to  the  old  alley,  and  hoped  that  it 
would  not  pass  away  in  my  time — that  before  the  old 
locality  should  be  improved  into  what  the  profane 
vulgar  call  sightliness  and  respectability,  I  should  (to 
use  the  common  expressions  of  one  of  our  greatest 
orators,  who,  in  almost  every  speech  and  oration 
that  he  has  made  for  some  years  past,  has  given  a 
sort  of  obituary  notice  of  himself  before  closing) 
have  been  "resting  in  peace  beneath  the  green  sods 
of  Mount  Auburn,"  or  should  have  "gone  down  to 
the  silent  tomb." 

Do  not  laugh,  beloved  reader,  at  the  tenderness  of 
my  affection  for  that  old  place.  There  is  a  great 
deal  of  romance  of  a  quiet  and  genial  kind  about 
Theatre  Alley.  As  I  first  remember  it,  commerce 
had  not  encroached  upon  its  precincts;  no  tall  ware- 
houses shut  out  the  light  from  its  narrow  footway, 
and  its  planks  were  unencumbered  by  any  intrusive 
bales  or  boxes.  Old  Dearborn's  scale  factory  was 
the  only  thing  to  remind  one  of  traffic  in  that  neigh 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF  THEATRE  ALLEY 

bourhood,  which  struck  a  balance  with  fate  by  be- 
coming more  scaley  than  before,  when  Dearborn  and 
his  factory  passed  away.  The  stage  door  of  the  the- 
atre was  in  the  alley,  and  the  walk  from  thence, 
through  Devonshire  Street,  to  the  Exchange  Coffee 
House,  which  was  the  great  hotel  of  Boston  at  that 
time,  was  once  well  known  to  many  whose  names  are 
now  part  of  the  history  of  the  drama.  How  often 
was  I  repaid  for  walking  through  the  alley  by  the 
satisfaction  of  meeting  George  Frederick  Cooke,  the 
elder  Kean,  Finn,  Macready,  Booth,  Cooper,  Incle- 
don,  old  Mathews,  or  the  tall,  dignified  Conway— 
or  some  of  that  goodly  company  that  made  Old 
Drury  classical  to  the  play-goers  of  forty  years 
ago. 

The  two  posts  which  used  to  adorn  and  obstruct 
the  entrance  to  the  alley  from  Franklin  Street,  when 
they  were  first  placed  there,  were  an  occasion  of  in- 
dignation to  a  portion  of  the  public,  and  of  anxiety 
and  vexation  to  Mr.  Powell,  the  old  manager.  That 
estimable  gentleman  had  often  been  a  witness  to  the 
terror  of  the  children  and  of  those  of  the  weaker  sex 
(I  hope  that  I  shall  be  forgiven  by  the  "Rev.  An- 
toinette Brown"  for  using  such  an  adjective)  who 
sometimes  met  a  stray  horse  or  cow  in  the  alley;  so 
he  placed  two  wooden  posts  just  beyond  the  theatre, 
to  shut  out  the  dreaded  bovine  intruders.  But  the 
devout  Hibernians  who  used  to  worship  at  the 
church  in  Franklin  Street  could  not  brook  the  placing 
of  any  such  obstacles  in  their  way  to  the  performance 
of  their  religious  duties;  and  they  used  to  cut  the 
posts  down  as  often  as  Mr.  Powell  set  them  up, 
until  he  took  refuge  in  the  resources  of  science,  and 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

covered  and  bound  them  with  the  iron  bands  which 
imprisoned  them  up  to  a  very  recent  period. 

Old  Mr.  Stoughton,  the  Spanish  consul,  used  to 
occupy  the  first  house  in  Franklin  Street  above  the 
alley,  behind  which  his  garden  ran  back  for  some 
distance.  How  little  that  worthy  gentleman  thought 
that  his  tulip  beds  and  rose  bushes  would  one  day 
give  place  to  a  dry  goods  shop !  Senor  Stoughton 
was  one  of  the  urbanest  men  that  ever  touched  a  hat. 
If  he  met  you  in  the  morning,  the  memory  of  his 
bland  and  gracious  salutation  never  departed  from 
you  during  the  day,  and  seemed  to  render  your  sleep 
sweeter  at  night.  He  always  treated  you  as  if  you 
were  a  prince  in  disguise,  and  he  were  the  only  per- 
son in  the  secret  of  your  incognito.  He  enjoyed  the 
intimate  friendship  of  that  great  and  good  man,  Dr. 
Cheverus,  the  first  Bishop  of  Boston,  who  was  after- 
wards transferred  to  the  archiepiscopal  see  of  Bor- 
deaux, and  decorated  with  the  dignity  of  a  Prince  of 
the  Church.  He,  too,  often  walked  through  the  old 
alley.  The  children  always  welcomed  his  approach. 
They  respected  Don  Stoughton;  Bishop  Cheverus 
they  loved.  His  very  look  was  a  benediction,  and 
the  mere  glance  of  his  eye  was  a  Sursum  cor  da.  That 
calm,  wise,  benignant  face  always  had  a  smile  for  the 
little  ones  who  loved  the  neighbourhood  of  that  hum- 
ble Cathedral,  and  the  pockets  of  that  benevolent 
prelate  never  knew  a  dearth  of  sugar  plums.  Years 
after  that  happy  time,  a  worthy  Protestant  minister 
of  this  vicinity — who  was  blessed  with  few  or  none 
of  those  prejudices  against  "Romanism"  which  are 
nowadays  considered  a  necessary  part  of  a  minister's 
education, — visited  Cardinal  Cheverus  in  his  palace 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF  THEATRE  ALLEY 

at  Bordeaux,  and  found  him  keenly  alive  to  every 
thing  that  concerned  his  old  associations  and  friends 
in  Boston.  He  declared,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  and 
with  that  air  of  sincerity  that  marked  every  word  he 
spoke,  that  he  would  gladly  lay  down  the  burden  of 
the  honour  and  power  that  then  weighed  upon  him, 
to  return  to  the  care  of  his  little  New  England  flock. 
Now,  Cardinal  Cheverus  was  a  man  of  taste  and  of 
kind  feelings,  and  I  will  warrant  you  that  when  he 
thought  of  Boston,  Theatre  Alley  was  included 
among  his  associations,  and  enjoyed  a  share  in  his 
affectionate  regrets. 

Mrs.  Grace  Dunlap's  little  shop  was  an  institution 
which  many  considered  to  be  coexistent  with  the 
alley  itself.  It  was  just  one  of  those  places  that  seem 
in  perfect  harmony  with  Theatre  Alley  as  it  was 
twenty-five  years  ago.  It  was  one  of  those  shops 
that  always  seem  to  shun  the  madding  crowd's  ig- 
noble strife,  and  seek  a  refuge  in  some  cool  seques- 
tered way.  The  snuff  and  tobacco  which  Mrs. 
Dunlap  used  to  dispense  were  of  the  best  quality,  and 
she  numbered  many  distinguished  persons  among  her 
customers.  The  author  of  the  History  of  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella  was  often  seen  there  replenishing  his 
box,  and  exchanging  kind  courtesies  with  the  fair- 
spoken  dealer  in  that  fragrant  article  which  is  pro- 
ductive of  so  many  bad  voices  and  so  much  real 
politeness  in  European  society.  Mrs.  Dunlap  her- 
self was  a  study  for  an  artist.  Her  pleasant  face,  her 
fair  complexion,  her  quiet  manner,  her  white  cap, 
with  its  gay  ribbons,  rivalling  her  eyes  in  brightness, 
were  all  in  perfect  keeping  with  the  scrupulous  neat- 
ness and  air  of  repose  that  always  reigned  in  her 

O57:] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

shop.  Her  parlour  was  as  comfortable  a  place  as 
you  would  wish  to  see  on  a  summer  or  a  winter  day. 
It  had  a  cheerful  English  look  that  I  always  loved. 
The  plants  in  the  windows,  the  bird  cage,  the  white 
curtains,  the  plain  furniture,  that  looked  as  if  you 
might  use  it  without  spoiling  it,  the  shining  andirons, 
and  the  blazing  wood  fire,  are  all  treasured  in  my 
memory  of  Theatre  Alley  as  it  used  to  be.  Mrs. 
Dunlap's  customers  and  friends  (and  who  could  help 
being  her  friend?)  were  always  welcome  in  her  par- 
lour, and  there  were  few  who  did  not  enjoy  her  sim- 
ple hospitality  more  than  that  pretentious  kind 
which  sought  to  lure  them  with  the  pomp  and  vanity 
of  mirrors  and  gilding.  Her  punch  was  a  work  of 
art.  But  I  will  refrain  from  pursuing  this  subject 
further.  It  is  no  pleasure  to  me  to  harrow  up  the 
feelings  of  my  readers  by  dwelling  upon  the  joys  of 
their  preterites  annos. 

When  Mrs.  Dunlap  moved  out  of  the  alley,  its 
glory  began  to  decline.  From  that  day  its  prestige 
seemed  to  have  gone.  Even  before  that  time  an  at- 
tempt had  been  made  to  rob  it  of  its  honoured  name. 
Signs  were  put  up  at  each  end  of  it  bearing  the  in- 
scription, "Odeon  Avenue";  but  the  attempt  was 
vain,  whether  it  proceeded  from  motives  of  godli- 
ness or  of  respectability;  nobody  ever  called  it  any 
thing  but  Theatre  Alley.  At  about  that  time  nearly 
all  the  buildings  left  in  it  were  devoted  to  the  philan- 
thropic object  of  the  quenching  of  human  thirst.  We 
read  that  St.  Paul  took  courage  when  he  saw  three 
taverns.  Who  can  estimate  the  height  of  daring  to 
which  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles  might  have  risen 
had  it  been  vouchsafed  to  him  to  walk  through  The- 

[2583 


TO  THE  MEMORY  OF  THEATRE  ALLEY 

atre  Alley.  One  of  the  most  frequented  resorts  there 
rejoiced  in  the  name  of  "The  Rainbow" — an  auspi- 
cious title,  certainly,  and  one  which  would  attract 
those  who  were  averse  to  the  cold  water  principle. 
Some  of  the  places  were  below  the  level  of  the  alley, 
and  verified,  in  a  striking  manner,  the  truth  of  Vir- 
gil's words,  Faciln  descensus  taverni.  Among  cer- 
tain low  persons,  not  appreciative  of  its  poetic 
associations,  the  alley  at  that  time  was  nicknamed 
"Rum  Row";  and  he  was  considered  a  hero  who 
could  make  all  the  ports  in  the  passage  through,  and 
carry  his  topsails  when  he  reached  Franklin  Street. 
Various  efforts  were  made  at  that  period  to  bring  the 
alley  into  disrepute.  Among  others,  a  sign  was  put 
up  announcing  that  it  was  dangerous  passing  through 
there;  I  fear  that  Father  Mathew  would  have 
thought  a  declaration  that  it  was  dangerous  stopping, 
to  have  been  nearer  the  truth.  But  the  daily  deputa- 
tions from  the  Old  Colony  and  Worcester  Railways 
could  not  be  kept  back  by  any  signs,  and  the  alley 
echoed  to  their  multitudinous  tramp  every  morning. 
Mr.  Choate,  too,  was  faithful  to  the  alley  through 
good  and  evil  report,  and  while  there  was  a  plank 
left,  it  was  daily  pressed  by  his  India  rubbers.  To 
such  a  lover  of  nature  as  he,  what  shall  take  the  place 
of  a  morning  walk  through  Theatre  Alley! 

But  venit  summa  dies  et  ineluctabile  tempus,  and 
the  old  alley  has  been  swept  away.  During  the  past 
century  how  many  thousands  have  passed  through 
it !  how  many  anxious  minds,  engrossed  with  schemes 
of  commercial  enterprises,  how  many  hearts  weary 
with  defeat,  how  many  kind,  and  generous,  and 
great,  and  good  men,  who  have  passed  away  from 

1259?! 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

earthly  existence,  like  the  alley  through  which  they 
walked!  But  while  I  mourn  over  the  loss,  I  would 
not  restore  it  if  I  could.  When  so  many  of  its  old 
associations  had  been  blotted  out;  when  low  dram- 
drinking  dens  had  taken  the  place  of  the  ancient, 
quiet  dispensatories  of  good  cheer;  when  grim  and 
gloomy  warehouses,  with  their  unsocial,  distrustful 
iron  shutters,  had  made  the  warm  sunlight  a  stranger 
to  it, — it  was  time  for  it  to  go.  It  was  better  that  it 
should  cease  to  exist,  than  continue  in  its  humiliation, 
a  reproach  to  the  neighbourhood,  and  a  libel  upon 
its  ancient  and  honourable  fame. 


THE   OLD   CATHEDRAL 

IN  many  people  who  have  been  abroad,  the  mere 
mention  of  the  old  city  of  Rouen  is  enough  to 
kindle  an  enthusiasm.  If  you  would  know  why  this 
is, — why  those  who  are  familiar  with  the  cathedrals 
of  Cologne,  Milan,  Florence,  and  the  basilicas  of 
Rome,  have  yet  so  deep  a  feeling  about  the  old  capi- 
tal of  Normandy,— the  true  answer  is,  that  Rouen, 
with  its  Gothic  glories  and  the  thrilling  history  of  the 
middle  ages  written  on  its  every  stone,  was  the  first 
ancient  city  that  they  saw,  and  made  the  deepest  im- 
pression on  their  minds.  They  had  left  the  stiff 
and  unsympathetic  respectability  of  Boston,  the  tire- 
some cleanliness  of  Philadelphia,  or  the  ineffable 
filth  of  New  York  behind  them;  or  perchance  they 
had  been  emancipated  from  some  dreary  western 
town,  whose  wide,  straight,  unpaved  streets  seemed 
to  have  no  beginning  and  to  end  nowhere;  whose 
atmosphere  was  pervaded  with  an  odour  of  fresh 
paint  and  new  shingles,  and  whose  inhabitants  would 
regard  fifty  years  as  a  highly  respectable  antiquity,— 
and  had  come  steaming  across  the  unquiet  Atlantic 
to  Havre,  eager  to  see  an  old  city.  A  short  railway 
ride  carried  them  to  one  in  which  they  could  not  turn 
a  corner  without  seeing  something  to  remind  them 
of  what  they  had  seen  in  pictures  or  read  in  books 
about  the  middle  ages.  The  richly-carved  window 
frames,  the  grotesque  faces,  the  fanciful  devices,  the 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

profusion  of  ornament,  the  shrines  and  statues  of 
the  saints  at  the  corners  of  the  streets,  and  all  the 
other  picturesque  peculiarities  of  that  queer  old  city, 
filled  them  with  wonder  and  delight.  Those  fan- 
tastic gables  that  seemed  to  be  leaning  over  to  look 
at  them,  inspired  them  with  a  respect  which  all  the 
architectural  wonders  and  artistic  trophies  of  the 
continent  are  powerless  to  disturb. 

It  was  not  my  fortune  thus  to  make  acquaintance 
with  Rouen.  I  had  several  times  tasted  the  pleasure 
of  a  continental  sojourn.  The  streets  of  several  of 
the  great  European  capitals  were  as  familiar  to  me 
as  those  of  my  native  city.  Yet  Rouen  captivated 
me  with  a  charm  peculiarly  its  own.  I  shall  not  easily 
forget  the  delicious  summer  day  in  which  I  left  Paris 
for  a  short  visit  to  Rouen.  That  four  hours'  ride 
over  the  Western  Railway  of  France  was  full  of 
solid  enjoyment  for  every  sense.  The  high  cultiva- 
tion of  that  fertile  and  unfenced  country— the  farm- 
ers at  work  in  the  sunny  broad-stretched  fields — the 
hay-makers  piling  up  their  fragrant  loads — the  cha- 
teau-like farm  houses,  looking  as  stately  as  if  they 
had  strayed  out  of  the  city,  and,  getting  lost,  had 
thought  it  beneath  their  dignity  to  inquire  the  way 
back — and  those  old  compactly  built  towns,  in  each 
of  which  the  houses  seem  to  have  nestled  together 
around  a  moss-grown  church  tower,  like  children  at 
the  knees  of  a  fond  mother, — made  up  a  scene  which 
harmonized  admirably  with  my  feelings  and  with  the 
day,  "so  calm,  so  cool,  so  bright,  the  bridal  of  the 
earth  and  sky."  My  fellow-passengers  shared  in 
the  general  joy  which  the  blithesomeness  of  nature 
inspired.  We  all  chatted  merrily  together,  and  a 

[262U 


THE  OLD  CATHEDRAL 

German,  who  looked  about  as  lively  as  Scott's  Com- 
mentaries bound  in  dark  sheep-skin,  tried  to  make  a 
joke.  So  irresistible  was  the  contagion  of  cheerful- 
ness, that  an  Englishman,  who  sat  opposite  me,  so 
far  forgot  his  native  dignity,  as  to  volunteer  the  re- 
mark that  it  was  a  "nice  day." 

At  last  we  began  to  consult  our  watches  and  time 
tables,  and,  after  a  shrill  whistle  and  a  ride  through 
a  long  tunnel,  I  found  myself,  with  a  punctuality  by 
which  you  might  set  your  Frodsham,  in  the  station  at 
Rouen.  I  obeyed  the  instructions  of  the  conductor 
to  Messieurs  les  voyageurs  pour  Rouen  to  descended, 
and  was,  in  a  very  few  minutes,  walking  leisurely 
through  narrow  and  winding  streets,  which  I  used  to 
think  existed  only  in  the  imaginations  of  novelists 
and  scene-painters.  I  say  walking,  but  the  fact  is,  I 
did  not  know  what  means  of  locomotion  I  employed 
in  my  progress  through  the  town.  My  eyes  and 
mind  were  too  busy  to  take  cognizance  of  any  infe- 
rior matters.  My  astonishment  and  delight  at  all 
that  met  my  sight  was  not  so  great  as  my  astonish- 
ment and  delight  to  find  myself  astonished  and  de- 
lighted. I  had  seen  so  many  old  cities  that  I  had  no 
thought  of  getting  enthusiastic  about  Rouen,  until  I 
found  myself  suddenly  in  a  state  of  mental  exalta- 
tion. I  had  visited  Rouen  as  many  people  visit 
churches  and  galleries  of  art  in  Italy— because  I  had 
an  opportunity,  and  feared  that  in  after  years  I 
might  be  asked  if  I  had  ever  been  there.  But,  if  a 
dislike  to  acknowledge  my  ignorance  led  me  to 
Rouen,  it  was  a  very  different  sentiment  that  took 
possession  of  me  as  soon  as  I  caught  the  spirit  of  the 
place.  The  genius  of  the  past  seemed  to  inhabit 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

every  street  and  alley  of  that  strange  city.  I  half  ex- 
pected, whenever  I  heard  the  hoofs  of  horses,  to  find 
myself  encompassed  by  mailed  knights;  and  if  Joan 
of  Arc,  with  her  sweet  maidenly  face  beaming  with 
the  inspiration  of  religious  patriotism,  had  galloped 
by,  it  would  not  have  surprised  me  so  much  as  it  did 
to  realize  that  I — a  Yankee,  clad  in  a  gray  travelling 
suit,  with  an  umbrella  in  my  hand,  and  drafts  to  a 
limited  amount  on  Baring  Brothers  in  my  pocket- 
was  moving  about  in  the  midst  of  such  scenes,  and 
was  not  arrested  and  hustled  out  of  the  way  as  a 
profane  intruder. 

Wandering  through  the  mouldy  streets  without 
any  definite  idea  whither  they  led,  and  so  charmed 
by  all  I  saw,  that  I  did  not  care,  I  suddenly  turned  a 
corner  and  suddenly  found  myself  in  a  market-place 
well  filled  with  figures,  which  would  have  graced  a 
similar  scene  in  any  opera-house,  and  facing  that 
stupendous  cathedral  which  is  one  of  the  glories  of 
France.  I  do  not  know  how  to  talk  learnedly  about 
architecture;  so  I  can  spare  you,  dear  reader,  any 
criticism  on  the  details  of  that  great  church.  I  have 
no  doubt  that  it  is  full  of  faults,  but  my  unskilful  eyes 
rested  only  on  its  beauties.  I  would  not  have  had  it 
one  stroke  of  the  chisel  less  ornate,  nor  one  shade 
less  dingy.  I  could  not,  indeed,  help  thinking  what 
it  must  have  been  centuries  ago,  when  it  was  in  all 
the  glory  of  its  fresh  beauty;  but  still  I  rejoiced  that 
it  was  reserved  for  me  to  behold  it  in  the  perfected 
loveliness  and  richer  glory  of  its  decay.  Never  until 
then  did  I  fully  appreciate  the  truth  of  Mr.  Ruskin's 
declaration,  that  the  greatest  glory  of  a  building  is 
not  in  its  sculptures  or  in  its  gold,  but  in  its  age, — nor 

C2643 


THE  OLD  CATHEDRAL 

did  I  ever  before  perfectly  comprehend  his  eloquent 
words  touching  that  mysterious  sympathy  which  we 
feel  in  "walls  that  have  long  been  washed  by  the 
passing  waves  of  humanity." 

After  lingering  for  a  while  before  the  sacred  edi- 
fice, I  entered,  and  stood  within  its  northern  aisle. 
Arches  above  arches,  supported  by  a  forest  of  mas- 
sive columns,  seemed  to  be  climbing  up  as  if  they 
aspired  to  reach  the  throne  of  Him  whose  worship 
was  daily  celebrated  there.  The  sun  was  obscured  by 
a  passing  cloud  as  I  entered,  and  that  made  the  an- 
cient arches  seem  doubly  solemn.  The  stillness  that 
reigned  there  was  rendered  more  profound  by  the 
occasional  twitter  of  a  swallow  from  some  "jutty 
frieze,"  or  "coigne  of  vantage,"  high  up  above  my 
head.  I  walked  half  way  up  the  aisle,  and  stopped 
on  hearing  voices  at  a  distance.  As  I  stood  listening, 
the  sun  uncovered  his  radiant  face,  and  poured  his 
golden  glory  through  the  great  western  windows  of 
the  church,  bathing  the  whole  interior  with  a  pris- 
matic brilliancy  which  made  me  wonder  at  my  pre- 
sumption in  being  there.  At  the  same  moment  a 
clear  tenor  voice  rang  out  from  the  choir  as  if  the 
sunbeams  had  called  it  into  being,  giving  a  wonderful 
expression  to  the  words  of  the  Psalmist,  Dominus 
illuminatio  mea  et  solus  mea;  quern  timebo.  Then 
came  a  full  burst  of  music  as  the  choir  took  up  the 
old  Gregorian  Chant— the  universal  language  of 
prayer  and  praise.  As  the  mute  groves  of  the  Acad- 
emy reecho  still  the  wisdom  of  the  sages,  so  did  that 
ancient  church  people  my  mind  with  forms  and  scenes 
of  an  age  long  passed  away.  "I  was  all  ear,"  and 
those  solemn  strains  seemed  to  be  endowed  with  the 

[2653 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

accumulated  melody  of  the  Misereres  and  Glorias  of 
a  thousand  years. 

I  have  an  especial  affection  for  an  old  church,  and 
I  pity  with  all  my  heart  the  man  whom  the  silent 
eloquence  of  that  vast  cathedral  does  not  move.  The 
very  birds  that  build  their  nests  in  its  mouldering 
towers  have  more  soul  than  he.  Its  every  stone  is  a 
sermon  on  the  transitoriness  of  human  enterprise  and 
the  vanity  of  worldly  hopes.  Beneath  its  pavement 
lie  buried  hopes  and  ambitions  which  have  left  no 
memorial  but  in  the  unread  pages  of  forgotten  his- 
torians. Richard,  the  lion-hearted,  who  made  two 
continents  ring  with  the  fame  of  his  valour,  and 
yearned  for  new  conquests,  was  obliged  at  last  to 
content  himself  with  the  dusty  dignity  and  obscurity 
of  a  vault  beneath  those  lofty  arches  which  stand 
unmoved  amid  the  contentions  of  rival  dynasties  and 
the  insane  violence  of  republican  anarchy. 

But  it  was  not  merely  to  write  of  the  glories  of 
Rouen  and  its  churches,  that  I  took  up  my  neglected 
pen.  The  old  cathedral  of  which  I  have  now  a  few 
kind  words  to  say,  does  not,  like  that  of  Rouen,  date 
back  sixteen  centuries  to  its  foundation;  neither  is  it 
one  of  those  marvels  of  architecture  in  which  the  con- 
scious stone  seems  to  have  grown  naturally  into 
forms  of  enduring  beauty.  No  great  synods  or  coun- 
cils have  been  held  within  its  walls;  nor  have  its  hum- 
ble aisles  resounded  daily  with  the  divine  office 
chanted  by  a  chapter  of  learned  and  pious  canons. 
Indeed  it  bears  little  in  its  external  appearance  that 
would  raise  a  suspicion  of  its  being  a  cathedral  at  all. 
Yet  its  plain  interior,  its  simple  altars,  and  its  unpre- 
tentious episcopal  throne,  bear  witness  to  the  abiding- 

£266:1 


THE  OLD  CATHEDRAL 

place  of  that  power  which  is  radiated  from  the  shrine 
of  the  Prince  of  the  Apostles — as  unmistakably  as  if 
it  were  encrusted  with  mosaics,  and  the  genius  of 
generations  of  great  masters  had  been  taxed  in  its 
adornment. 

The  Cathedral  of  Boston  is  the  last  relic  of  Frank- 
lin Street  as  I  delight  to  remember  it.  One  by  one, 
the  theatre,  the  residence  of  the  Catholic  bishops, 
and  the  old  mansions  that  bore  such  a  Berkeley 
Square-y  look  of  respectability  have  passed  away; 
and  the  old  church  alone  remains.  Tall  warehouses 
look  down  upon  it,  as  if  it  were  an  intruder  there,  and 
the  triumphal  car  of  traffic  makes  its  old  walls  trem- 
ble and  disturbs  the  devotion  of  its  worshippers.  An 
irreverent  punster  ventured  a  few  months  since  to 
suggest  that,  out  of  regard  to  its  new  associations,  it 
ought  to  be  rededicated  under  the  invocation  of  St. 
Casimir,  and  to  be  enlarged  by  the  addition  of  a 
chapel  built  in  honor  of  St.  Pantaleone. 

Quid  non  mortalia  pectora  cogis, 
Joci  sacra  fames ! 

But  it  is  well  that  it  should  follow  the  buildings  with 
which  it  held  companionship  through  so  many  quiet 
years.  The  charm  of  the  old  street  has  been  de- 
stroyed, and  the  sooner  the  last  monument  of  its 
former  state  is  removed  the  better  it  will  be.  The 
land  on  which  it  stands  formerly  belonged  to  the 
Boston  Theatre  corporation.  It  was  transferred  to 
its  present  proprietorship  in  the  last  week  of  the  last 
century,  and  the  first  Catholic  church  in  New  Eng- 
land was  erected  upon  it.  That  church  (enlarged 
considerably  by  the  late  Bishop  Fenwick)  is  the  one 

C267  ^ 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

which  still  stands,  and  towards  which  I  feel  a  venera- 
tion similar  in  kind  to  that  inspired  by  the  cathedrals 
of  the  old  world.  Even  now  I  remember  with  pleas- 
ure how  I  used  to  enjoy  an  occasional  visit  to  that 
strange  place  in  my  boyhood.  "Logic  made  easy" 
and  "Geometry  for  Infant  Schools"  were  things  un- 
known in  my  young  days.  I  was  weaned  from  the 
Primer  and  Spelling-book  with  the  Arabian  Nights' 
Entertainments,  and  the  works  of  Defoe,  Goldsmith, 
Addison,  and  Shakespeare.  Therefore  the  romantic 
instinct  was  not  entirely  crushed  out  of  my  youthful 
heart,  and  it  would  be  difficult,  dear  reader,  for  you 
to  conceive  how  much  I  found  to  feed  it  on,  within 
those  plain  brick  walls. 

The  lamp  which  used  to  burn  constantly  before  the 
altar,  until  an  anxiety  for  "improvement"  removed  it 
out  of  sight  behind  the  pulpit,  filled  me  with  an  inde- 
scribable awe.  I  was  ignorant  of  its  meaning,  and 
for  years  was  unaware  that  my  childish  reverence 
for  its  mild  flicker  was  a  blind  homage  to  one  of  the 
profoundest  mysteries  of  the  Catholic  faith.  I  re- 
member to  this  day  the  satisfaction  I  took  in  the 
lighting  of  those  tall  candles,  and  what  a  halo  of 
mysterious  dignity  surrounded  even  the  surpliced 
boys  grouped  around  that  altar.  That  strange  cere- 
monial surpassed  my  comprehension.  The  Latin,  as 
I  heard  it  sung  there,  was  pronounced  so  differently 
from  what  I  had  been  taught  at  school,  that  it  was  all 
Greek  to  me.  Yet,  when  I  saw  the  devotion  of  that 
congregation,  and  the  pious  zeal  of  the  devoted 
clergymen  who  built  that  church,  I  could  not  call  their 
worship  "mummery,"  nor  join  in  the  irreverent 
laughter  of  my  comrades  at  those  ancient  rites. 

C2683 


THE  OLD  CATHEDRAL 

There  was  something  about  them  that  seemed  to  fill 
up  my  ideal  of  worship— a  soothing  and  consoling 
influence  which  I  found  nowhere  else. 

I  never  entertained  the  vulgar  notion  of  a  Catholic 
.priest.  Of  course  my  education  led  me  to  regard  the 
dogmas  of  the  Roman  Church  with  any  thing  but  a 
friendly  eye;  but  my  ideas  of  the  clergy  of  that 
Church  were  not  influenced  by  popular  prejudice.  I 
was  always  willing  to  believe  that  Vincent  de  Paul, 
and  Charles  Borromeo,  and  Fenelon  were  what  they 
were,  in  consequence  of  their  religion,  rather  than  in 
spite  of  it,  as  some  people,  who  make  pretensions  to 
liberality,  would  fain  persuade  us.  When  I  recall 
the  self-denying  lives  of  the  two  founders  of  the 
Catholic  Church  in  Boston,  —  Matignon  and  Chev- 
erus, — I  wonder  that  the  influence  of  their  virtues 
has  not  extended  even  to  the  present  day,  to  soften 
prejudice  and  do  away  with  irreligious  animosity. 
They  were  regarded  with  distrust,  if  not  with  hatred, 
when  they  first  came  among  us  to  take  charge  of  that 
humble  flock;  but  their  devotedness,  joined  with 
great  acquirements  and  rare  personal  worth,  over- 
came even  the  force  of  the  great  Protestant  tradition 
of  enmity  towards  their  office.  Protestant  admira- 
tion kept  pace  with  Catholic  love  and  veneration  in 
their  regard,  and  when  they  built  the  church  which  is 
now  so  near  the  term  of  its  existence,  there  were  few 
wealthy  Protestants  in  Boston  who  did  not  esteem 
it  a  privilege  to  aid  them  with  liberal  contributions. 
The  first  subscription  paper  for  its  erection  was 
headed  by  the  illustrious  and  venerable  name  of  John 
Adams,  the  successor  of  Washington  in  the  presi- 
dency of  the  United  States. 

[269] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

The  memory  of  the  first  Bishop  of  Boston,  Dr. 
Cheverus,  is  (for  most  Bostonians  of  my  age)  the 
most  precious  association  connected  with  the  Cathe- 
dral. He  was  endeared  to  the  people  of  this  city  by 
ten  years  of  unselfish  exertion  in  the  duties  of  a  mis- 
sionary priest,  before  he  was  elevated  to  the  dignity 
of  the  episcopate.  His  unwillingness  to  receive  the 
proffered  mitre  was  as  characteristic  of  his  modest 
and  humble  spirit,  as  the  meekness  with  which  he 
bore  his  faculties  when  the  burden  of  that  respon- 
sibility was  forced  upon  him.  His  "episcopal 
palace,"  as  he  used  facetiously  to  term  his  small  and 
scantily-furnished  dwelling,  which  was  contiguous  to 
the  rear  of  the  church,  was  the  resort  of  all  classes  of 
the  community.  His  simplicity  of  manner  and  in- 
genuous affability  won  all  hearts.  The  needy  and 
opulent,  the  learned  and  illiterate,  the  prosperous 
merchant  and  the  Indians  in  the  unknown  wilds  of 
Maine,  found  in  him  a  father  and  a  friend.  Chil- 
dren used  to  run  after  him  as  he  walked  down  Frank- 
lin Place,  delighted  to  receive  a  smile  and  a  kind 
word  from  one  whose  personal  presence  was  like  a 
benediction. 

His  face  was  the  index  of  a  pure  heart  and  a  great 
mind.  It  was  impossible  to  look  at  him  without  re- 
calling that  fine  stanza  of  the  old  poet.— 

"A  sweete  attractive  kind  of  grace, 
A  full  assurance  given  by  lookes, 
Continuall  comfort  in  a  face, 
The  lineaments  of  Gospel  bookes;— 
I  trow  that  countenance  cannot  lie 
Whose  thoughts  are  legible  in  the  eye." 

[270  ] 


THE  OLD  CATHEDRAL 

One  of  the  ancient  Hebrew  prophets,  in  describ- 
ing the  glories  of  the  millennial  period,  tells  us  that 
upon  the  bells  of  the  horses  shall  be  the  words,  Holi- 
ness unto  the  Lord— •a.  prophecy  which  always  re- 
minded me  of  Cheverus;  for  that  divine  inscription 
seemed  to  have  been  written  all  over  his  benign 
countenance  as  with  the  luminous  pen  of  the  rapt 
evangelist  in  Patmos. 

But  Bishop  Cheverus  was  not  merely  a  good  man 
—he  was  a  great  man.  He  did  not  court  the  society 
of  the  learned,  for  his  line  of  duty  lay  among  the 
poor;  but,  even  in  that  humble  sphere,  his  talents 
shone  out  brightly,  and  won  the  respect  even  of 
those  who  had  the  least  sympathy  with  the  Church  to 
which  his  every  energy  was  devoted.  Boston  valued 
him  highly;  but  few  of  her  citizens  thought,  as  they 
saw  him  bound  on  some  errand  of  mercy  through  her 
streets,  that  France  envied  them  the  possession  of 
such  a  prelate,  that  the  peerage  of  the  old  monarchy 
was  thought  to  need  his  virtuous  presence,  and  that 
the  scarlet  dignity  of  a  Prince  of  the  Church  was  in 
reserve  for  that  meek  and  self-sacrificing  servant  of 
the  poor.  Had  he  been  gifted  with  prophetic  vision, 
his  humility  would  have  had  much  to  suffer,  and  his 
life  would  have  been  made  unhappy,  by  the  thought 
of  coming  power  and  honour.  He  had  given  the  best 
part  of  his  life  to  Boston,  and  here  he  wished  to  die. 
He  had  buried  his  friend  and  fellow-labourer,  Dr. 
Matignon,  in  the  Church  of  St.  Augustine  at  South 
Boston,  and  when  he  placed  the  mural  tablet  over  the 
tomb  of  that  venerable  priest,  he  left  a  space  for  his 
own  name,  and  expressed  the  hope  that,  as  they  had 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

lived  together  harmoniously  for  so  many  years,  they 
might  not  in  death  be  separated.  It  was  a  strange 
sight  to  see  more  than  two  hundred  Protestants 
remonstrating  against  the  translation  of  a  Catholic 
bishop  from  their  city,  and  speaking  of  him  in  such 
terms  as  these:  "We  hold  him  to  be  a  blessing  and  a 
treasure  in  our  social  community,  which  we  cannot 
part  with,  and  which,  without  injustice  to  any  man, 
we  may  affirm,  if  withdrawn  from  us,  can  never  be 
replaced."  And  when  he  distributed  all  that  he  pos- 
sessed among  his  clergy,  his  personal  friends  and  the 
poor,  and  left  Boston  as  poor  as  he  had  entered  it, 
with  the  single  trunk  that  contained  his  clothes  when 
he  arrived,  twenty-seven  years  before,— public  ad- 
miration outran  the  power  of  language.  Doctrinal 
differences  were  forgotten.  Three  hundred  car- 
riages and  other  vehicles  escorted  him  several  miles 
on  the  road  to  New  York,  where  he  was  to  embark. 
Of  his  life  as  Bishop  of  Montauban,  Archbishop 
of  Bordeaux,  a  Peer  of  France,  and  a  Cardinal,  there 
is  not  space  for  me  to  speak.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that 
amid  all  the  dignities  to  which  he  was  successively 
promoted,  he  lived  as  simply  and  unostentatiously  as 
when  he  dwelt  in  Franklin  Street;  and  that  in  time 
of  pestilence  and  public  distress  he  showed  the  same 
unbounded  charity  which  caused  his  departure  from 
Boston  to  be  considered  a  public  calamity.  To  the 
last  day  of  his  life  he  maintained  his  interest  in  his 
American  home,  and  would  gladly  have  relinquished 
all  his  dignities  to  return  and  minister  at  the  altar  of 
the  church  he  here  erected.  Throughout  France  he 
was  honoured  and  beloved,  even  as  he  had  been  in 
the  metropolis  of  New  England,  and  a  nation  sor- 

C2723 


THE  OLD  CATHEDRAL 

rowed  at  his  death.  Full  as  his  life  was  of  good 
works,  it  was  not  in  his  eloquence,  nor  his  learning, 
nor  in  the  pious  and  charitable  enterprises  which  he 
originated,  that  the  glory  of  Cardinal  Cheverus  con- 
sisted; it  was  in  the  simplicity  of  his  character  and 
the  daily  beauty  of  his  life : — 

"His  thoughts  were  as  a  pyramid  up-piled, 
On  whose  far  top  an  angel  stood  and  smiled, 
Yet  in  his  heart  he  was  a  little  child." 

The  gentle  and  benevolent  spirit  of  that  illustrious 
prelate  has  never  departed  from  the  church  he  built. 
When  Channing  died,  and  was  buried  from  the 
church  which  his  eloquence  had  made  famous,  the 
successor  of  Cheverus  caused  the  bell  of  the  neigh- 
bouring Cathedral  to  be  tolled,  that  it  might  not 
seem  as  if  the  Catholics  had  forgotten  the  friendly 
relations  which  had  existed  between  the  great  Uni- 
tarian preacher  and  their  first  bishop.  And  when 
the  good  Bishop  Fenwick  was  borne  from  the  old 
Cathedral,  with  all  the  pomp  of  pontifical  obsequies, 
his  courtesy  and  regard  for  Dr.  Channing's  memory 
was  not  forgotten,  and  the  bell  which  was  so  lately 
removed  from  the  tower,  where  it  had  swung  for 
half  a  century,  joined  with  that  of  the  Cathedral  in 
giving  expression  to  the  general  sorrow,  and  proved 
that  no  dogmatic  differences  had  disturbed  the 
kindly  spirit  which  Channing  inculcated  and  had  ex- 
emplified in  his  blameless  life. 

Of  the  later  history  of  the  Cathedral  of  the  Holy 
Cross  I  may  not  speak.  My  youthful  respect  for  it 
has  in  no  degree  diminished,  and  I  shall  always  con- 
sider it  a  substantial  refutation  of  the  old  apothegm, 

£273:1 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

"Familiarity  breeds  contempt."  There  are,  I  doubt 
not,  those  who  regard  that  old  edifice  with  deeper 
feelings  than  mine.  Who  can  estimate  the  affection 
and  veneration  in  which  it  is  held  by  those  who  may 
there  have  found  an  asylum  from  harassing  doubts, 
who  have  received  from  that  font  the  joy  of  a  reno- 
vated heart,  and  from  that  altar  the  divine  gift  which 
is  at  the  same  time  a  consolation  for  past  sorrows 
and  a  renewal  of  strength  to  tread  the  rough  path  of 
life! 

I  am  told  that  it  will  not  probably  be  long  before 
the  glittering  cross  which  the  pure-hearted  Cheverus 
placed  upon  the  old  church  will  be  removed,  and  the 
demolition  of  his  only  monument  in  Boston  will  be 
effected.  Permit  me  to  conclude  these  reminiscences 
with  the  expression  of  the  hope  that  the  new  Cathe- 
dral of  Boston  will  be  an  edifice  worthy  of  this 
wealthy  city,  and  that  it  may  contain  some  fitting 
memorial  of  the  remarkable  man  who  exercised  his 
beneficent  apostolate  among  us  during  more  than  a 
quarter  of  a  century.  The  virtues  which  merited  the 
gratitude  of  the  poor  and  the  highest  honours  which 
pontiffs  and  kings  can  bestow,  ought  not  to  go  uncom- 
memorated  in  the  city  which  witnessed  their  develop- 
ment, and  never  hesitated  to  give  expression  to  its 
love  and  veneration  for  their  possessor.  But  what- 
ever the  new  Cathedral  may  be, — however  glorious 
the  skill  of  the  architect,  the  sculptor,  and  the  painter 
may  render  it, — there  are  those  in  whose  affections  it 
will  never  be  able  to  replace  the  little  unpretending 
church  which  Cheverus  built,  and  which  the  remem- 
brance of  his  saintly  life  has  embalmed  in  all  their 
hearts. 

l>74  3 


THE   PHILOSOPHY  OF 
SUFFERING 

I  am  old, 

And  my  infirmities  have  chained  me  here 
To  suffer  and  to  vex  my  weary  soul 
With  the  vain  hope  of  cure.*  *  * 
Yet  my  captivity  is  not  so  joyless 
As  you  would  think,  my  masters.    Here  I  sit 
And  look  upon  this  eager,  anxious  world, — 
Not  with  the  eyes  of  sour  misanthropy, 
Nor  envious  of  its  pleasures, — but  content, — 
Yea,  blessedly  content,  'mid  all  my  pains, 
That  I  no  more  may  mingle  with  its  brawlings. 

HUMAN  suffering  is  an  old  and  favourite 
theme.  From  the  time  when  the  woes  of  Job 
assumed  an  epic  grandeur  of  form,  and  the  adven- 
tures and  pains  of  Philoctetes  inspired  the  tragic 
muse  of  Sophocles,  down  to  the  publication  of  the 
last  number  of  the  London  Lancet,  there  would  seem 
to  have  been  no  subject  so  attractive  as  the  sufferings 
of  poor  humanity.  Literature  is  filled  with  their 
recital,  and,  if  books  were  gifted  with  a  vocal  power, 
every  library  would  resound  with  wailings.  Ask 
your  neighbour  Jenkins,  who  overtakes  you  on  your 
way  to  your  office,  how  he  is,  and  it  is  ten  chances  to 
one  that  he  will  entertain  you  with  an  account  of  his 
influenza  or  his  rheumatism.  It  is  a  subject,  too, 
which  age  cannot  wither  nor  custom  stale.  It  knows 
none  of  the  changes  which  will  at  times  dwarf  or 

£275: 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

keep  out  of  sight  all  other  themes.  The  weather, 
which  forms  the  raw  material  of  so  much  conversa- 
tion, is  nothing  compared  to  it.  There  is  nothing 
which  men  find  so  much  pleasure  in  talking  about  as 
their  own  ailments.  The  late  Mr.  Webster,  of 
Marshfield,  was  once  stopping  for  a  single  day  in  a 
western  city,  where  he  had  never  been  before,  and 
where  there  was  a  natural  curiosity  among  many  of 
the  inhabitants  to  see  the  Defender  of  the  Constitu- 
tion. He  therefore  set  apart  two  hours  before  the 
time  of  his  departure  for  the  reception  of  such  per- 
sons as  might  seek  the  honour  of  a  shake  of  his 
hand.  The  reception  took  place  in  one  of  the  par- 
lours of  a  hotel,  the  crowd  filing  in  at  one  door,  being 
introduced  by  the  mayor,  and  making  their  exit  by 
another.  In  the  course  of  the  proceedings,  a  little 
man,  with  a  lustrous  beaver  in  one  hand-and  a  gold- 
headed  cane  in  the  other,  and  whose  personal  ap- 
parel appeared  to  have  been  got  up  (as  old  Pelby 
would  have  said)  without  the  slightest  regard  to  ex- 
pense, and  on  a  scale  of  unparalleled  splendour, 
walked  forward,  and  was  presented  by  the  mayor  as 
"Mr.  Smith,  one  of  our  most  eminent  steamboat 
builders  and  leading  citizens."  Mr.  Webster's  large, 
thoughtful,  serene  eyes  seemed  to  be  completely 
filled  by  the  result  of  the  combined  efforts  of  the 
linen-draper,  the  tailor,  and  the  jeweller,  that  con- 
fronted him,  and  his  deep  voice  made  answer — "Mr. 
Smith,  I  am  happy  to  see  you.  I  hope  you  are  well, 
sir."  "Thank  you,  thir,"  said  the  leading  citizen,  "I 
am  not  very  well.  I  wath  tho  unfortunate  ath  to 
take  cold  yethterday  by  thitting  in  a  draught.  Very 
unpleathant,  Mr.  Webthter,  to  have  a  cold!  But 

[276  3 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  SUFFERING 

Mrs.  Smith  thays  that  the  thinks  that  if  I  put  my 
feet  in  thome  warm  water  to-night,  and  take  thome- 
thing  warm  to  drink  on  going  to  bed,  that  I  may  get 
over  it.  I  thertainly  hope  tho,  for  it  really  givth  me 
the  headache,  and  I  can't  thmell  at  all."  Mr.  Web- 
ster expressed  a  warm  interest  in  Mr.  Smith's  case, 
and  a  hope  that  Mrs.  Smith's  simple  medical  treat- 
ment would  result  beneficially,  and  then  turned  with 
undisturbed  gravity  to  the  next  citizen,  who,  with 
some  six  hundred  others,  was  anxiously  waiting  his 
turn.  We  are  all  like  Mr.  Smith.  We  laugh,  it  is 
true,  at  his  affectations,  but  we  are  as  likely  to  force 
our  petty  ailments  upon  a  mind  burdened  with  the 
welfare  of  a  nation;  and  we  never  tire  of  hearing 
ourselves  talk  about  our  varying  symptoms.  Polite- 
ness may  hold  us  back  from  importuning  our  friends 
with  the  diagnosis  of  our  case,  but  our  self-centred 
hearts  are  all  alike,  and  a  cold  in  the  head  will 
awaken  more  feelings  in  its  victim  than  the  recital  of 
all  the  horrors  of  the  hospital  of  Scutari.  Nothing 
can  equal  the  heroic  fortitude  with  which  we  bear 
the  sufferings  of  our  fellows,  or  the  saintliness  of  our 
pious  resignation  and  acquiescence  in  the  wisdom  of 
the  divine  decrees  when  our  friends  are  bending  un- 
der their  afflictive  stroke. 

I  wish  to  say  a  few  words  about  suffering.  Do  not 
be  afraid,  beloved  reader,  that  I  am  going  to  carry 
you  into  rooms  from  which  the  light  is  excluded,  and 
which  are  strangers  to  any  sound  above  a  whisper, 
or  the  casual  movement  of  some  of  the  phials  on  the 
mantel-piece.  I  am  going  to  speak  of  suffering  in  its 
strict  sense  of  pain,— bodily  pain, — and  sickness  is 
not  necessarily  accompanied  with  pain.  I  cannot  re- 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

gard  your  sick  man  as  a  real  sufferer.  His  fever 
rages,  and  he  tosses  from  side  to  side  as  if  he  were 
suffering  punishment  with  Dives ;  but  from  the  inco- 
herent phrases  which  escape  from  his  parched  lips, 
you  learn  that  his  other  self  is  rapt  in  the  blissfulness 
that  enfolds  Lazarus.  He  prattles  childishly  of 
other  lands  and  scenes— he  thinks  himself  surrounded 
by  friends  whose  faces  once  were  grateful  to  his 
sight,  but  who  long  since  fell  before  the  power  with 
which  he  is  struggling— or  he  fancies  himself  meta- 
morphosed into  a  favourite  character  in  some  pleas- 
ant book  which  he  has  lately  read.  After  a  time  he 
wakes  forth  from  his  delirium,  but  he  cannot  even 
then  be  called  a  sufferer.  '  On  the  contrary,  his  situa- 
tion, even  while  he  is  so  entirely  dependent  upon 
those  around  him,  is  really  the  most  independent  one 
in  the  world.  His  lightest  wish  is  cared  for  as  if  his 
life  were  the  price  of  its  non-accomplishment.  All 
his  friends  and  kinsmen,  and  neighbours  whom  he 
hardly  knows  by  sight,  vie  with  each  other  in  trying 
to  keep  pace  with  his  returning  appetite.  He  is  the 
absolute  monarch  of  all  he  surveys.  There  is  no  one 
to  dispute  his  reign.  The  crown  of  convalescence  is 
the  only  one  which  does  not  make  the  head  that 
wears  it  uneasy.  He  has  nothing  to  do  but  to  satisfy 
his  longings  for  niceties,  to  listen  to  kind  words  from 
dear  friends,  to  sleep  when  he  feels  like  it,  and  to 
get  better.  I  am  afraid  that  we  are  all  so  selfish  and 
so  enslaved  by  our  appetites,  that  the  period  of  con- 
valescence is  the  pleasantest  part  of  life  to  most 
of  us. 

Therefore  I  shut  out  common  sickness,  fevers,  and 
the  like,  from  any  share  in  my  observations  on  suffer- 

£278:1 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  SUFFERING 

ing.  If  you  ask  me  what  I  should  be  willing  to  con- 
sider real  bodily  pain,  — since  I  am  unwilling  to  allow 
that  ordinary  sick  men  participate  in  it,  — I  should 
say  that  you  can  find  it  in  a  good,  old-fashioned  at- 
tack of  rheumatism  or  gout.  I  think  it  was  Horace 
Walpole  who  said  that  these  two  complaints  were 
very  much  alike,  the  difference  between  them  being 
this:  that  rheumatism  was  like  putting  your  hand  or 
foot  into  a  vice,  and  screwing  it  up  as  tight  as  you 
possibly  can,  and  gout  was  the  same  thing,  only  you 
give  the  screw  one  more  turn.  It  is  no  flattery  to 
speak  of  the  victim  to  either  of  these  disorders  as  a 
sufferer.  The  rheumatic  gout  is  a  complaint  which 
possesses  all  the  advantages  and  peculiarities  which 
its  compound  title  denotes.  It  unites  in  itself  all  the 
potentiality  of  gout  and  all  the  ubiquity  of  rheu- 
matism. Its  characteristics  have  been  impressed 
upon  me  in  a  manner  that  sets  at  defiance  that  weak- 
ness of  memory  which  generally  accompanies  old 
age.  Sharp  experience,  increasing  in  sharpness  as 
my  years  pile  up,  makes  that  complaint  a  specialty 
among  my  acquirements.  These  stinging,  burning, 
cutting  pains  deserve  the  superlative  case,  if  any 
thing  does.  Language  (that  habitual  bankrupt)  is 
reduced  to  a  most  abject  state  when  called  upon  to 
describe  rheumatic  gout.  The  disease  does  not  seem 
to  feel  satisfied  with  poisoning  your  blood  by  its 
aciduousness,  it  makes  your  flesh  tingle  and  burn, 
and,  like  the  late  Duke  of  Wellington,  does  not  rest 
until  it  has  conquered  the  bony  part.  The  very  bone 
seems  to  be  crumbling  wherever  the  demon  of  gout 
pinches.  There  are  moments  in  the  life  of  every 
gouty  man  when  it  seems  as  if  nothing  would  be  so  re- 

£3793 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

freshing  as  to  indulge  for  a  while  in  the  use  of  that 
energetic  diction,  savouring  more  of  strength  than 
of  righteousness,  which  is  common  among  cavalry 
troops  and  gentlemen  of  the  seafaring  profession, 
but  which,  in  society,  is  considered  to  be  a  little  in 
advance  of  the  prejudices  of  the  age.  No  higher 
encomium  could  be  passed  upon  a  gouty  man  than  to 
say  that,  with  all  his  torments,  he  never  swore,  and 
was  seldom  petulant.  But  there  are  very  few  whose 
merits  deserve  this  canonization. 

But  gout,  with  all  its  pains,  has  yet  its  redeeming 
characteristics.  That  great  law  of  compensation 
which  reduces  the  inequalities  of  our  lot,  and  makes 
Brown,  Jones,  and  Robinson  come  out  about  even  in 
the  long  run,  is  not  inoperative  here.  The  gout  is 
painful,  but  its  respectability  is  unquestionable.  It  is 
the  disease  of  a  gentleman.  It  is  a  certificate  of  good 
birth  more  satisfactory  than  any  which  the  Heralds' 
College  or  the  Genealogical  Association  can  furnish. 
It  is  but  right,  too,  that  the  man  who  can  date  back 
his  family  history  to  Plymouth  or  Jamestown  in  this 
country,  and  to  Runnymede  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  should  pay  something  for  such  a  privilege. 
A  man  may  never  have  indulged  in  "the  sweet  poison 
of  the  Tuscan  grape"  himself,  but  can  he  reasonably 
complain  of  an  incontrovertible  testimony  to  the  fact 
that  his  ancestors  lived  well!  Chacun  a  son  gout: 
for  myself,  I  should  much  prefer  my  honoured  fam- 
ily name,  with  all  its  associations  with  the  brave 
knight  who  made  it  famous,  accompanied  by  the  only 
possession  which  I  have  received  by  hereditary  right, 
to  the  most  unequivocal  state  of  health  burdened 
with  such  a  name  as  Jinkins. 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  SUFFERING 

Mentally  and  spiritually,  the  gout  is  far  from 
being  a  useless  institution.  It  ripens  a  man's  judg- 
ment, and  prunes  away  the  radical  tendencies  of  his 
nature.  It  will  convert  the  wildest  of  revolutionists 
into  the  stiffest  of  conservatives.  It  teaches  a  man 
to  look  at  things  as  they  really  are,  and  not  as  enthu- 
siasm would  have  them  represented.  No  gouty  man 
would  ever  look  to  the  New  York  Tribune  as  the 
exponent  of  his  religious  or  political  creed.  His 
complaint  has  a  positive  character,  and  it  makes  him 
earnest  to  find  something  positive  in  religion  and 
politics.  The  negativeness  of  radicalism  tires  him. 
He  deprecates  every  thing  like  change.  He  thinks 
that  religion,  and  society,  and  government  were  es- 
tablished for  some  better  end  than  to  afford  a  per- 
petual employment  to  the  destructive  powers  of 
visionary  reformers  and  professional  philanthro- 
pists. He  longs  to  find  constancy  and  stability  in 
something  besides  his  inexorable  disorder. 

There  is  another  disorder  which  people  generally 
seem  to  consider  a  very  trifling  affair,  but  which  any 
one  who  knows  it  will  allow  to  be  productive  of  the 
most  unmistakable  pain.  I  refer  to  neuralgia.  Who 
pities  a  neuralgic  person?  Any  healthy  man,  when 
asked  about  it,  will  answer  in  his  ignorance  that  it  is 
"only  a  headache."  But  ask  the  school  teacher, 
whose  throbbing  head  seems  to  be  beating  time  to 
the  ceaseless  muttering  and  whispering  of  her  schol- 
ars as  they  bend  over  their  tasks— ask  the  student, 
whose  thoughts,  like  undisciplined  soldiers,  will  not 
fall  into  the  ranks,  and  whose  head  seems  to  be  oc- 
cupied by  a  steam  engine  of  enormous  power,  run- 
ning at  the  highest  rate  of  pressure,  with  the  driver 

£281;] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

sitting  on  the  safety-valve — ask  them  whether  neu- 
ralgia is  "only  a  headache"  I  Who  can  tell  the 
cause  of  the  prevalence  of  this  scourge?  whether  it 
proceeds  from  our  houses  overheated  with  intolera- 
ble furnaces  and  anthracite  coal,  or  from  our  treach- 
erous and  unconstant  climate  so  forcibly  described  by 
Choate:  "Cold  to-day;  hot  to-morrow;  mercury  at 
eighty  degrees  in  the  morning,  with  wind  at  south- 
west ;  and  in  three  hours  more  a  sea  turn,  with  wind 
at  east,  a  thick  fog  from  the  very  bottom  of  the 
ocean,  and  a  fall  of  forty  degrees  of  Fahrenheit." 
The  uncertainty  which  seems  to  attend  all  human 
science,  and  the  science  of  medicine  in  particular,  en- 
velops this  mysterious  disease,  and  thousands  of  us 
are  left  to  suffer  and  wonder  what  the  matter  is. 

But  all  of  these  pains,  gouty,  neuralgic,  and 
otherwise,  have  yet  their  sweet  uses,  and  like  the  vile 
reptile  Shakespeare  tells  us  of,  are  adorned  with  a 
precious  jewel.  The  old  Roman  emperors  in  the 
hour  of  triumph  used  to  have  a  slave  stand  behind 
them  to  whisper  in  their  ear,  from  time  to  time,  the 
unwelcome  but  salutary  truth  that  they  were  but 
mortal  men.  Even  now,  on  the  occasion  of  the  en- 
thronement of  a  Pope,  a  lighted  candle  is  applied  to 
a  bunch  of  flax  fixed  upon  a  staff,  and  as  the  smoke 
dissipates  itself  into  thin  air  before  the  newly- 
crowned  Pontiff,  surrounded  as  he  is  by  all  the  em- 
blems of  religion  and  all  the  insignia  and  pomp  of 
worldly  power,  the  same  great  truth  of  the  perish- 
ableness  of  all  mortal  things  is  impressed  upon  his 
mind  by  the  chanting  of  the  simple  but  eloquent 
phrase,  Sic  transit  gloria  mundi.  But  we  neuralgic 
and  gouty  wretches  need  no  whispering  slave  nor 

C282] 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  SUFFERING 

smoking  flax  to  remind  us  of  our  frailty  and  the 
transientness  of  our  happiness  and  glory.  We  carry 
with  us  a  monitor  who  checks  our  swelling  pride,  and 
teaches  us  effectually  the  brevity  of  human  joys.  We 
are  very  apt,  in  our  impatience  and  short-sightedness, 
to  think  that  if  we  had  the  management  of  the  world 
and  the  dispensation  of  pleasure  and  suffering,  every 
thing  could  be  conducted  in  a  much  more  satisfactory 
manner.  If  it  were  so,  we  should  undoubtedly  carry 
things  on  in  the  style  of  a  French  restaurant,  so  that 
we  could  have  pain  a  discretion.  But  on  the  whole, 
I  am  inclined  to  think  that  we  had  better  leave  these 
matters  to  the  management  of  that  infinite  Power 
which  gives  us  day  by  day  our  daily  pain,  and  from 
which  we  receive  in  the  long  run  about  what  is  meet 
for  us.  I  hope  that  I  shall  not  be  thought  ill-bred  or 
profane  in  using  such  expressions  as  these.  At  my 
time  of  life  it  is  too  late  to  begin  to  murmur.  A  few 
twinges  more  or  less  are  nothing  when  the  hair 
grows  gray  and  the  eye  is  dimmed  with  the  mists  of 
age.  The  man  who  knows  nothing  of  the  novitiate 
of  patience — who  has  passed  through  life  without 
the  chastening  discipline  of  bodily  pain — has  missed 
one  of  the  best  parts  of  existence.  To  suffer  is  one 
of  the  noblest  prerogatives  of  human  nature.  With- 
out suffering,  life  would  be  robbed  of  half  its  zest, 
and  the  thought  of  death  would  drive  us  to  despair. 

When  I  was  a  young  man,  and  gave  little  thought 
to  the  gout  and  the  other  ills  that  vex  me  at  present, 
I  saw  a  wonderful  exhibition  of  patience,  which  I 
now  daily  recall  to  mind,  and  wish  I  could  imitate. 
I  was  sojourning  in  Florence,  that  lovely  city,  whose 
every  association  is  one  of  calm  and  satisfactory 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

pleasure  undisturbed  by  any  thing  like  bodily  suffer- 
ing. I  enjoyed  the  friendship  of  a  young  American 
amateur  artist  of  unquestioned  talent,  but  whose 
artistic  efforts  were  interfered  with  by  the  frequent 
attacks  of  a  serious  and  excruciating  disorder.  It 
was  considerable  time  after  I  made  his  acquaintance 
before  I  knew  that  he  was  an  invalid.  I  noticed  his 
lameness,  but  whenever  we  met  he  wore  a  smiling 
face,  and  had  a  cheerful  word  for  every  body.  One 
evening  I  called  in  at  his  quiet  lodgings  near  the 
Lung'  Arno,  and  found  a  party  of  some  six  or  eight 
Americans  talking  over  their  recollections  of  home. 
He  was  entertaining  them  with  the  explanation  of  an 
imaginary  panorama  of  New  England,  and  a  musical 
friend  threw  in  illustrative  passages  from  the  piano 
in  the  intervals.  The  parlour  resounded  with  our 
laughter  at  his  irresistible  fun ;  but  in  the  midst  of  it 
all,  he  asked  us  to  excuse  him  for  a  moment,  and 
went  into  his  bed-room.  After  a  little  while,  another 
engagement  calling  me  away,  I  went  into  his  chamber 
to  speak  with  him  before  leaving.  I  found  him  lying 
upon  his  bed,  writhing  like  Laocoon,  while  great 
drops  stood  upon  his  brow  and  agony  was  depicted 
on  his  patient  face.  He  resisted  all  my  attempts  to 
do  any  thing  for  him;  the  attack  had  lasted  all  day, 
but  was  at  some  times  severer  than  at  others;  he 
should  feel  better  soon,  and  would  go  back  to  his 
friends;  I  had  better  not  stop  with  him,  as  it  might 
attract  their  attention  in  the  parlour,  &c.  So  I  took 
my  leave.  The  next  morning  I  met  one  of  his 
friends,  who  told  me  that  he  returned  to  his  com- 
pany a  few  minutes  after  my  departure,  and  enter- 
tained them  for  an  hour  or  more  with  an  exhibition 

[284:1 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  SUFFERING 

of  his  powers  of  wit  and  humour,  which  eclipsed 
all  his  previous  efforts.  Poor  S.  C.I  His  weary 
but  uncomplaining  spirit  laid  down  that  crippled 
body,  which  never  gave  aught  but  pain  to  its  posses- 
sor, three  or  four  years  ago,  and  passed,  let  us  hope, 
into  a  happier  state  of  existence,  which  flesh  and 
blood,  with  their  countless  maladies  and  dolours, 
may  not  inherit. 

The  traveller  in  the  south  of  Europe  frequently 
encounters,  in  his  perambulations  through  the  streets 
and  squares  of  cities,  a  group  of  people  gathered 
around  a  monk,  who  is  discoursing  to  them  of  those 
sublime  truths  which  men  are  prone  to  lose  sight  of 
in  their  walks  abroad.  The  style  of  the  sermon  is 
not,  it  is  true,  what  we  should  look  for  from  New- 
man, or  Ravignan,  or  Ventura,  but  it  has  in  it  those 
fundamental  principles  of  true  eloquence,  simplicity 
and  earnestness;  and  the  coarse  brown  habit,  the 
knotted  cord,  and  the  pale,  serene,  devout  face  of 
the  preacher,  harmonize  wondrously  with  the  self- 
denying  doctrine  he  teaches,  and  give  a  double  force 
to  all  his  words.  His  instructions  frequently  concern 
the  simple  moral  duties  of  life  and  the  exercise  of  the 
cardinal  virtues,  which  he  enforces  by  illustrations 
drawn  from  the  lives  of  canonized  saints,  who  won 
their  heavenly  crown  and  their  earthly  fame  of 
blessedness  by  the  practice  of  those  virtues.  Allow 
me  to  close  my  sermon  on  suffering  in  the  manner  of 
the  preaching  friars,  though  I  may  not  draw  my 
illustrations  from  the  ancient  martyrologies ;  for  I 
apprehend  that  it  will  be  more  in  keeping  with  the 
serious  character  of  this  essay  to  take  them  from  an- 
other source.  We  have  all  laughed  at  Dickens's 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

characters  of  Mark  Tapley  and  Mr.  Toots.  The 
former  was  celebrated  for  "keeping  jolly  under  dis- 
advantageous circumstances,"  and  seemed  to  mourn 
over  those  dispensations  of  good  fortune  which  de- 
tracted from  his  credit  in  being  jolly.  The  latter  was 
never  known  to  indulge  in  any  complaint,  but  met 
every  mishap  and  disappointment  with  a  manly  resig- 
nation and  the  simple  remark,  "It's  of  no  conse- 
quence." Even  when  he  was  completely  ingulfed  in 
misfortunes,  when  Pelion  seemed  to  have  been 
heaped  upon  Ossa,  and  both  upon  him,  he  did  not 
give  way  to  despair.  He  only  gave  utterance  more 
fervently  to  his  favourite  maxim,  "It's  of  no  conse- 
quence. Nothing  is  of  any  consequence  whatever!" 
Now,  laugh  at  it  as  we  may,  this  is  a  great  truth.  It 
is  the  foundation  of  all  true  philosophy — of  all  prac- 
tical religion.  A  few  years  more,  and  what  will  it 
avail  us  to  have  bargained  successfully,  to  have  lived 
in  splendour,  to  have  left  in  history  a  name  that  shall 
be  the  synonyme  of  power !  A  few  years,  and  what 
shall  we  care  for  all  our  present  sufferings  and  the 
light  afflictions  which  are  but  for  a  moment !  May 
we  not  say  with  Solomon,  that  "All  is  vanity,"  and 
with  poor  Toots,  that  "Nothing  is  of  any  conse- 
quence whatever"?  Now,  if  there  are  any  people 
who  are  likely  to  arrive  at  this  satisfactory  conclu- 
sion, and  who  need  the  consolation  imparted  by  the 
reception  and  full  appreciation  of  the  deep  truth  it 
contains,  it  is  the  gouty,  and  rheumatic,  and  neuralgic 
wretches  whom  I  have  had  in  mind  while  writing  this 
paper.  Let  me,  in  conclusion,  as  one  who  has  had 
some  experience,  and  is  not  merely  theorizing,  ex- 
hort all  such  persons  to  meditate  upon  the  lives  of 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  SUFFERING 

the  two  great  patterns  of  patience  whom  I  have 
brought  forward  as  examples;  and  to  bear  in  mind 
that  it  is  only  through  the  resignation  of  Toots,  that 
they  can  attain  to  the  jollity  of  Tapley.  Likewise  let 
me  counsel  those  who  may  be  passing  through  life 
unharmed  by  serious  misfortune  and  untrammelled 
by  bodily  pain,  never  to  lose  sight  of  that  striking 
admonition  of  old  Sir  Thomas  Browne's,  "Measure 
not  thyself  by  thy  morning  shadow,  but  by  the  extent 
of  thy  grave;  and  reckon  thyself  above  the  earth,  by 
the  line  thou  must  be  contented  with  under  it." 


£287:1 


BOYHOOD  AND  BOYS 

HUMAN  nature  is  a  very  telescopic  "institu- 
tion." It  delights  to  dwell  on  whatever  is 
most  distant.  Lord  Rosse's  famous  instrument 
dwindles  down  to  a  mere  opera  glass  if  you  compare 
it  with  the  mental  vision  of  a  restless  boy,  looking 
forward  to  the  time  when  he  shall  don  a  tail-coat  and 
a  beaver  hat.  How  his  young  heart  swells  with 
pride  as  he  anticipates  the  day  when  he  shall  be  his 
own  master,  as  the  phrase  is — when  he  shall  be  able 
to  stay  out  after  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening,  and  to 
go  home  without  being  subjected  to  the  ignominy  of 
being  escorted  by  a  chambermaid!  If  he  be  of  a 
particularly  sanguine  temperament,  his  wild  imagina- 
tion is  rapt  in  the  contemplation  of  the  possibility  of 
one  day  having  his  name  in  the  newspapers  as  secre- 
tary of  some  public  meeting,  or  as  having  made  a 
vigorous  speech  at  a  political  caucus  where  liberty  of 
speech  runs  out  into  slander,  and  sedition  is  mistaken 
for  patriotism, — or  perhaps  even  of  being  one  day  a 
Common  Councilman,  or  a  member  of  the  Great  and 
General  Court.  A  popular  poet  of  the  present  day 
has  expressed  the  same  idea  in  a  less  prosaic  man- 
ner:— 

"Not  rainbow  pinions  coloured  like  yon  cloud, 
The  sun's  broad  banner  o'er  his  western  tent, 
Can  match  the  bright  imaginings  of  a  child 
Upon  the  glories  of  his  coming  years,;" — 

[288  ] 


BOYHOOD  AND  BOYS 

and  another  bard  avers  that  human  blessings  are 
always  governing  the  future,  and  never  the  present 
tense, — or  something  to  that  effect.  The  truth  of 
this  nobody  will  deny  who  has  passed  from  the  boxes 
of  childhood  upon  the  stage  of  manhood  which  so 
charmed  his  youthful  fancy,  and  finds  that  the  heroes 
who  dazzled  him  once  by  their  splendid  achieve- 
ments are  mere  ordinary  mortals  like  himself,  whom 
the  blindness  or  caprice  of  their  fellows  has  allowed 
to  be  dressed  in  a  little  brief  authority;  that  the 
cloud-capped  towers  and  gorgeous  palaces  he  used  to 
gaze  on  from  afar,  prove,  on  a  closer  inspection,  to 
be  mere  deceptions  of  paint  and  canvas,  and  that  he 
has  only  to  look  behind  them  to  see  the  rough  bricks 
and  mortar  of  every-day  life. 

The  voyager  who  sails  from  the  dark  waters  of 
the  restless  Atlantic  into  the  deep  blue  Mediterra- 
nean, notices  at  sunset  a  rich  purple  haze  which  rises 
apparently  from  the  surface  of  that  fair  inland  sea, 
and  drapes  the  hills  and  vales  along  the  beautiful 
shore  with  a  glory  that  fills  the  heart  of  the  beholder 
with  unutterable  gladness.  The  distant,  snow-cov- 
ered peaks  of  old  Granada,  clad  in  the  same  bright 
robe,  seem  by  their  regal  presence  to  impose  silence 
on  those  whom  their  majestic  beauty  has  blessed 
with  a  momentary  poetic  inspiration  which  defies  all 
power  of  tongue  or  pen.  It  touches  nothing  which  it 
does  not  adorn,  and  the  commonest  objects  are  trans- 
muted by  its  magic  into  fairy  shapes  which  abide  ever 
after  in  the  memory.  Under  its  softening  influence, 
the  dingy  sail  of  a  fisherman's  boat  becomes  almost 
as  beautiful  an  object  to  the  sight  as  the  ruins  of  the 
temple  which  crowns  the  height  of  Cape  Colonna. 

C289U 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

But  when  you  approach  nearer  to  that  which  had 
seemed  so  charming  in  its  twilight  robes,  your  poetic 
sense  is  somewhat  interfered  with.  You  find  the 
fishing  boat  as  unattractive  as  any  that  anchor  on  the 
Banks  from  which  we  obtain  such  frequent  discounts 
of  nasty  weather,  and  the  shore,  though  it  may  still 
be  very  beautiful,  lacks  the  supernal  glory  imparted 
to  it  by  distance.  It  is  very  much  after  this  fashion 
with  manhood,  when  we  compare  its  reality  with  our 
childish  expectations.  We  find  that  we  have  been 
deceived  by  a  mere  atmospheric  phenomenon.  But 
the  destruction  of  the  charm  which  age  had  for  our 
eyes  as  children,  is  compensated  for  by  the  creation 
of  a  new  glory  which  lights  up  our  young  days,  as  we 
look  back  upon  them  with  the  regret  of  manhood, 
and  realize  that  their  joys  can  never  be  lived  over 
again. 

Pardon  me,  gentle  reader,  for  all  this  prosing.  I 
have  been  reading  that  pleasant,  hearty  book,  "Tom 
Brown's  School  Days  at  Rugby,"  during  the  past 
week,  and  it  has  set  me  a-thinking  about  my  own  boy- 
hood; for,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  there  was  a  time 
when  this  troublesome  foot  was  more  familiar  with 
the  football  and  the  skate  than  with  gout  and  flannel, 
—  and  Tom  Brown's  genial  reminiscences  have  re- 
vived the  memory  of  that  time  most  wonderfully. 
There  was  considerable  fun  in  Boston  in  my  child- 
hood, even  though  most  of  the  faces  which  one  met 
in  Marlboro'  Street  and  Cornhill  were  such  as  might 
have  appropriately  surrounded  Cromwell  at  Naseby 
or  Marston  Moor.  There  were  many  people,  even 
then,  who  did  not  regard  religion  as  an  affair  of 
spasmodic  emotions,  and  long,  bilious-looking  faces, 

0901! 


BOYHOOD  AND  BOYS 

and  psalm-singing,  and  neck-ties.  They  thought 
that,  so  long  as  they  were  honest  in  their  dealings, 
and  did  not  swear  to  false  invoices  at  the  custom- 
house, and  did  as  they  would  be  done  by,  and  lived 
virtuously,  that  He  to  whom  they  had  been  taught  by 
parental  lips  to  pray,  would  overlook  the  smaller 
offences — such  as  an  occasional  laugh  or  a  pleasant 
jest — into  which  weak  nature  would  now  and  then 
betray  them.  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  they  were 
about  right,  though  I  fear  that  I  shall  be  set  down  as 
little  better  than  one  of  the  wicked  by  Stiggins,  Chad- 
band,  Sleek  &  Co. 

Yes,  there  was  a  good  deal  of  fun  among  the  boys 
in  those  old  days.  Boys  will  be  boys,  however  serious 
the  family  may  be;  and  if  you  take  away  their  mar- 
bles, some  other  "vanity"  will  be  sure  to  take  their 
place.  What  jolly  times  we  used  to  have  Artillery 
Election!  How  good  the  egg-pop  used  to  taste,  in 
spite  of  the  dust  of  Park  Street,  which  mingled  itself 
liberally  with  the  nutmeg !  How  we  used  to  save  up 
our  money  for  those  festive  days !  How  hard  the 
arithmetic  lessons  seemed,  particularly  in  the  days 
immediately  preceding  vacation !  How  dreary  were 
those  long  winters;  and  yet  how  short  and  pleasant 
they  seemed  to  us !  for  we  loved  the  runners,  and 
skates,  and  jingling  bells,  and,  as  Pescatore,  the  Nea- 
politan poet,  sings,  "though  bleak  our  lot,  our  hearts 
were  warm." 

Newspapers  were  not  a  common  luxury  in  those 
times,  and  I  suppose  that  I  took  as  little  notice  of 
passing  events  as  most  children;  yet  I  well  remember 
the  effect  produced  upon  my  mind  one  dark,  threaten- 
ing afternoon,  near  the  close  of  the  last  century,  by 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

iht  announcement  of  the  death  of  General  Washing- 
ton. I  had  been  accustomed  to  hear  him  talked  about 
as  the  Father  of  his  Country;  I  had  studied  the 
lineaments  of  his  calm  countenance,  as  they  were  set 
forth  for  the  edification  of  my  patriotism  on  some 
coarse  handkerchiefs  presented  to  me  by  a  public- 
spirited  aunt,  until  I  began  to  look  upon  him  as 
almost  a  supernatural  being.  If  I  had  been  told  that 
the  Old  South  had  been  removed  to  Dorchester 
Heights,  or  that  the  solar  system  was  irreparably 
disarranged,  I  should  not  have  been  more  completely 
taken  aback  than  I  was  by  that  melancholy  intelli- 
gence. I  need  not  say  that  afterwards,  when  I  grew 
up  and  found  that  Washington  was  not  only  a  mortal 
like  the  rest  of  us,  but  that  he  sometimes  spelt  incor- 
rectly enough  to  have  suited  Noah  Webster,  (the 
inventor  of  the  American  language,)  my  supernat- 
ural view  of  that  estimable  general  and  patriot  was 
very  materially  modified.  I  remember,  too,  how 
much  I  used  to  hear  said  about  an  extraordinary  man 
who  had  risen  up  in  France,  and  who  seemed  to  be 
bending  all  Europe  to  his  will.  I  never  shall  forget 
my  astonishment  on  finding  that  Marengo  was  not  a 
man,  but  a  place.  The  discovery  shamed  me  some- 
what, and  afterwards  I  always  read  whatever  news- 
papers came  in  my  way.  When  some  slow  tub  of  a 
packet  had  come  across  the  ocean,  battling  with  the 
nor'-westers,  and  was  announced  to  have  made  a 
"quick  passage  of  forty-eight  days,"  how  eagerly  I 
followed  the  rapid  fortunes  of  the  first  Napoleon! 
His  successes,  as  they  intoxicated  him,  dazzled  and 
bewildered  my  boyish  imagination.  I  understood  the 
matter  imperfectly,  but  I  loved  Napoleon,  and  de- 

£292:1 


BOYHOOD  AND  BOYS 

lighted  to  repeat  to  myself  those  stirring  names, 
Austerlitz,  Jena,  Wagram,  &c.  How  I  hated  Rus- 
sia after  the  disastrous  campaign  of  1812  !  (By  the 
way,  the  exhibition  of  the  Conflagration  of  Moscow, 
which  used  to  have  its  intermittent  terms  of  exhibi- 
tion here  some  years  since,  always  brought  back  all 
my  youthful  feelings  about  the  old  Napoleon;  the 
march  of  the  artillery  across  the  bridge,  in  the  fore- 
ground of  the  scene,  the  rattling  of  the  gun  carriages, 
—that  most  warlike  of  all  warlike  sounds,— the 
burning  city,  the  destruction  of  the  Kremlin,  all 
united  in  my  mind  to  form  a  sentiment  of  admiration 
and  sympathy  for  the  baffled  conqueror.  If  that  ad- 
mirable show  were  to  be  revived  once  more,  I  should 
be  tempted  to  take  a  season  ticket  to  it,  for  I  have  no 
doubt  that  it  would  thrill  me  just  as  it  did  before  my 
head  could  boast  of  a  single  gray  hair.)  Nor  was 
my  admiration  for  Napoleon's  old  marshals  much 
below  that  which  I  entertained  for  the  mighty  genius 
who  knew  so  well  how  to  avail  himself  of  their  sur- 
passing bravery  and  skill.  I  felt  as  if  the  unconquer- 
able Murat,  Lannes,  Macdonald,  Davoust,  were  my 
dearest  and  most  intimate  friends.  The  impetuous 
Ney,  "the  bravest  of  the  brave,"  as  his  soldiers 
called  him;  and  the  inflexible  Massena,  "the  fa- 
vourite child  of  victory,"  figured  In  all  my  dreams, 
heading  gallant  charges,  and  withstanding  deadly 
assaults,  and  occupied  the  best  part  of  my  waking 
thoughts.  I  do  not  doubt  that  there  is  many  a  school- 
boy nowadays  who  has  dwelt  with  equal  delight  on 
the  achievements  of  Scott  and  Taylor,  of  Canrobert, 
Bosquet  and  Pelissier,  of  Fenwick  Williams  and 
Havelock,  and  poor  old  Raglan,  (that  brave  man 

£293:] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

upon  whom  the  Circumlocution  Office  tried  to  fasten 
the  blame  of  its  own  inefficiency,  and  who  died 
broken-hearted,  a  melancholy  illustration  of  the 
truth  of  Shakespeare's  lines,— 

"The  painful  warrior,  famoused  for  fight, 
After  a  thousand  victories  once  foiled, 
Is  from  the  book  of  honour  razed  quite, 
And  all  the  rest  forgot  for  which  he  toiled,") 

and  who  cherishes  them  as  I  did  the  heroes  of  half  a 
century  ago. 

But,  as  I  was  saying,  Tom  Brown's  happy  reminis- 
cences of  Rugby  have  awakened  once  more  all  my 
boyish  feelings ;  for  New  England  has  its  Rugby,  and 
many  of  the  readers  of  the  old  Rugby  boy's  pleasant 
pages  will  grow  enthusiastic  with  the  recollection  of 
their  schoolboy  days  at  Exeter, — their  snowballings, 
their  manly  sports,  their  mighty  contests  with  the 
boys  of  the  town, — and,  though  they  may  not  claim 
the  genius  of  the  former  head-master  of  Rugby  for 
the  guardian  of  their  youthful  sports  and  studies, 
will  apply  all  of  the  old  boy's  praises  of  Dr.  Arnold 
to  the  wise,  judicious,  and  lovable  Dr.  Abbot. 

I  always  cherished  an  unbounded  esteem  for  boys. 
The  boy — the  genuine  human  boy— may,  I  think, 
safely  be  set  down  as  the  noblest  work  of  God.  Pope 
claims  that  proud  distinction  for  the  honest  man,  but 
at  the  present  time,  the  nearest  we  can  come  to  such 
a  mythological  personage  as  an  honest  man,  (even 
though  we  add  Argand  burners,  expensive  Carcels, 
Davy  safeties,  and  the  Drummond  light  to  the  offi- 
cially recognized  lantern  of  Diogenes,)  is  a  real 
human  boy,  without  a  thought  beyond  his  next  holi- 

C294] 


BOYHOOD  AND  BOYS 

day,  with  his  heart  overflowing  with  happiness,  and 
his  pockets  chock  full  of  marbles.  Young  girls  can- 
not help  betraying  something  of  the  in-dwelling 
vanity  so  natural  to  the  sex;  you  can  discern  a  self- 
consciousness  in  their  every  action  which  you  shall 
look  for  in  vain  in  the  boy.  Bless  your  heart! — you 
may  dress  a  real  boy  up  with  superhuman  care,  and 
try  to  impress  on  his  young  mind  that  he  is  the  pride 
of  his  parents,  and  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
beings  that  ever  visited  this  mundane  sphere,  and  he 
will  listen  to  you  with  becoming  reverence  and  docil- 
ity; but  his  pure  and  honest  nature  will  give  the  lie 
to  all  your  flattery  as  soon  as  your  back  is  turned,  and 
in  ten  minutes  you  will  find  him  kicking  out  the  toes 
of  his  new  boots,  or  rumpling  his  clean  collar  by 
"playing  horse,"  or  using  the  top  of  his  new  cap  for 
a  drinking  vessel,  and  mixing  in  with  the  Smiths,  and 
Browns,  and  Jinkinses,  on  terms  of  the  most  unques- 
tioned equality.  The  author  of  Tom  Brown  says 
that  "boys  follow  one  another  in  herds  like  sheep, 
for  good  or  evil ;  they  hate  thinking,  and  have  rarely 
any  settled  principles."  This  is  undoubtedly  true; 
but  still  there  is  a  generous  instinct  in  boys  which  is 
far  more  trustworthy  than  those  sliding,  and  unreli- 
able, and  deceptive  ideas  which  we  call  settled  prin- 
ciples. The  boy's  thinking  powers  may  be  fallible, 
but  his  instinct  is,  in  the  main,  sure.  There  is  no 
aristocracy  of  feeling  among  boys.  Linsey-woolsey 
and  broadcloth  find  equal  favour  in  their  eyes.  What 
they  seek  is  just  as  likely  to  be  found  under  coarse 
raiment  as  under  purple  and  fine  linen.  If  their  com- 
panion is  a  real  good  feller,  even  though  he  be  a  son 
of  a  rich  merchant  or  banker,  he  is  esteemed  as 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

highly  as  if  his  father  were  an  editor  of  a  newspa- 
per. 

The  nature  of  the  boy  is  full  of  the  very  essence  of 
generosity.  The  boys  who  hide  away  their  ginger- 
bread, and  eat  it  by  themselves, — who  lay  up  their 
Fourth  of  July  five-cent  pieces,  for  deposit  in  that 
excellent  savings  institution  in  School  Street,  instead 
of  spending  them  for  the  legitimate  India  crackers  of 
the  "Sabbath  Day  of  Freedom,"  —  are  exceptions 
which  only  put  the  general  rule  beyond  the  pale  of 
controversy.  The  real  boy  carries  his  apple  in  one 
of  his  pockets  until  it  is  comfortably  warm,  and  he 
has  found  some  companion  to  whom  he  may  offer  a 
festive  bite ;  for  he  feels,  with  Goethe,  that 

"  It  were  the  greatest  misery  known 
To  be  in  paradise  alone;" 

and  if,  occasionally,  when  he  sees  his  friend  gratify- 
ing his  palate  with  a  fair  round  specimen  of  the  same 
delicious  fruit,  he  asks  for  a  return  of  his  kindness, 
with  a  beckoning  gesture,  and  a  free  and  easy — "I 
say,  you  know  me,  Bill !" — he  is  moved  thereto  by  no 
mere  selfish  liking  for  apples,  but  by  a  natural  sense 
of  friendship,  and  of  the  excellence  of  the  apostolic 
principle  of  community  of  goods.  This  spirit  of 
generosity  may  be  seen  in  the  friendships  of  boys, 
which  are  more  entire  and  unselfish  than  those  by 
which  men  seek  to  mitigate  the  irksomeness  of  life. 
There  are  more  Oresteses  and  Pyladeses,  more  Da- 
mons and  Pythiases,  at  twelve  years  of  age  than  at 
any  later  period  of  life.  The  devotedness  of  boyish 
friendship  is  peculiar  from  the  fact  that  it  is  gen- 
erally reciprocal.  In  this  it  is  superior  to  what  we 


BOYHOOD  AND  BOYS 

call  love,  which,  if  we  may  believe  the  French 
satirist,  in  most  instances  consists  of  one  party  who 
loves,  and  another  who  allows  himself  or  herself  to 
be  loved.  This  phenomenon  has  not  escaped  the 
notice  of  that  great  observer  of  human  nature, 
Thackeray. 

"What  generous  boy,"  he  asks,  "in  his  time  has 
not  worshipped  somebody?  Before  the  female  en- 
slaver makes  her  appearance,  every  lad  has  a  friend 
of  friends,  a  crony  of  cronies,  to  whom  he  writes 
immense  letters  in  vacation;  whom  he  cherishes  in  his 
heart  of  hearts;  whose  sister  he  proposes  to  marry 
in  after  life;  whose  purse  he  shares;  for  whom  he 
will  take  a  thrashing  if  need  be;  who  is  his  hero." 

The  generosity,  and  all  the  priceless  charms  of 
boyhood,  rarely  outlive  its  careless  years  of  happi- 
ness. They  are  generally  severely  shaken,  if  not 
wholly  destroyed,  when  the  youth  enters  upon  that 
crepuscular  period  of  manhood  in  which  his  jacket 
is  lengthened  into  a  sack,  and  he  begins  to  take  his 
share  in  the  conceit,  and  ambition,  and  selfishness  of 
full-grown  humanity.  It  is  sad  to  think  that  a  human 
boy,  like  the  morning  star,  full  of  life  and  joy,  may 
be  stricken  down  by  death,  and  all  his  hilarity  stifled 
in  the  grave ;  but  to  my  mind  it  is  even  more  melan- 
choly to  think  that  he  may  live  to  grow  up,  and  be 
hard,  and  worldly,  and  ungenerous  as  any  of  the  rest 
of  us.  For  this  latter  fate  is  accompanied  by  no  con- 
solations such  as  naturally  assuage  our  sorrow  when 
an  innocent  child  is  snatched  from  among  his  play- 
things,— when  "death  has  set  the  seal  of  eternity 
upon  his  brow,  and  the  beautiful  hath  been  made  per- 
manent." I  have  seen  few  men  who  would  be  willing 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

to  live  over  again  their  years  of  manhood,  however 
prosperous  and  comparatively  free  from  trouble  they 
may  have  been ;  but  fewer  still  are  those  whom  I  have 
met,  in  whose  memory  the  records  of  boyhood  are 
not  written  as  with  a  sunbeam.  No,  talk  as  we  may 
about  the  happiness  of  manhood,  the  satisfaction  of 
success  in  life,  of  gratified  ambition,  of  the  posses- 
sion of  the  Mary  or  Lizzie  of  one's  choice, — what  is 
it  all  compared  to  the  unadulterate  joy  of  that  time 
when  we  built  our  card  houses,  and  made  our  dirt 
pies,  or  drove  our  hoops,  unvexed  by  the  thoughts 
that  Jinkins's  house  was  larger  than  ours,  or  by  any 
anxiety  concerning  the  possibility  of  obtaining  our 
next  day's  mutton-chop  and  potatoes?  Except  the 
momentary  pain  occasioned  by  the  exercise  of  a  ma- 
gisterial rattan  upon  our  persons,  or  an  occasional 
stern  reproof  from  a  hair-brush  or  the  thin  sole  of  a 
maternal  shoe,  that  halcyon  period  is  imperturbed, 
and  may  safely  be  called  the  happiest  part  of  life. 

My  venerated  friend,  Baron  Nabem,  who  has 
been  through  all  these  "experiences,"  and  therefore 
ought  to  know,  insists  upon  it  that  no  man  really 
knows  any  thing  until  he  is  forty  years  old.  For 
when  he  is  eighteen  or  twenty  years  of  age,  he  es- 
teems himself  to  be  a  sort  of  combination  of  the 
seven  wise  men  of  Greece  in  one  person,  with  Hum- 
boldt,  Mezzofanti,  and  Macaulay  thrown  in  to  make 
out  the  weight;  at  twenty-five,  his  confidence  in  his 
own  infallibility  begins  to  grow  somewhat  shaky;  at 
thirty,  he  begins  to  wish  that  he  might  really  know  a 
tenth  part  as  much  as  he  thought  he  did  ten  years 
before;  at  thirty-five,  he  thinks  that  if  he  were  added 
up,  there  would  be  very  little  to  carry;  and  at  forty 

C2983 


BOYHOOD  AND  BOYS 

the  great  truth  bursts  upon  him  in  all  its  effulgence 
^hat  he  is  an  ass.  There  are  some  who  reach  this 
desirable  state  of  self-knowledge  before  they  attain 
the  age  specified  by  the  Baron;  other  some  there  are 
who  never  reach  it  at  all, — as  we  all  see  numerous 
instances  around  us, — but  these  are  mere  exceptions 
strengthening  rather  than  invalidating  the  common 
rule.  It  is  a  humiliating  acknowledgment,  but  if  we 
consider  the  uncertainty  of  all  earthly  things,  if  we 
try  the  depth  of  the  sea  of  human  science,  and  find 
how  easy  it  is  to  touch  bottom  any  where  therein,  if 
we  convince  ourselves  of  the  impenetrability  of  the 
veil  which  bounds  our  mental  vision, — I  think  that 
we  shall  be  obliged  to  allow  that  the  recognition  of 
our  own  nothingness  and  asininity  is  the  sum  and  per- 
fection of  human  knowledge.  Now,  Solomon  tells 
us  that  he  who  increases  knowledge  increases  sor- 
row; and  it  naturally  follows  that  when  a  man  has 
reached  the  knowledge  which  generally  comes  with 
his  fortieth  year,  he  is  less  happy  than  he  was  when 
he  wrapped  himself  in  the  measureless  content  of  his 
twentieth  year's  self-deception.  And  it  follows,  too, 
most  incontrovertibly,  that  he  is  happier  when  unpos- 
sessed by  that  exaggerated  self-esteem  which  ren- 
dered the  discovery  of  his  fortieth  year  necessary  to 
him ;  and  when  is  that  time,  if  not  during  the  careless, 
happy  years  of  boyhood? 

The  period  of  boyhood  has  been  shortened  very 
considerably  within  a  few  years;  and  real  boys  are 
becoming  scarce.  They  are  no  sooner  emancipated 
from  the  bright  buttons  which  unite  the  two  principal 
articles  of  puerile  apparel,  than  they  begin  to  pant 
for  virile  habiliments.  Their  choler  is  roused  if  they 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

are  denied  a  stand-up  dickey.  They  sport  canes. 
They  delight  to  display  themselves  at  lectures  and 
concerts.  Their  young  lips  are  not  innocent  of 
damns  and  short-sixes;  and  they  imitate  the  vulgarity 
and  conceit  of  the  young  men  of  the  present  day  so 
successfully  that  you  find  it  hard  to  believe  that  they 
are  mere  children.  Since  this  period  of  dearth  in  the 
boy  market  set  in,  of  course  the  genuine,  marketable 
article  has  become  more  precious  to  me.  I  remem- 
ber seeing  an  old  physician  in  Paris,  who  was  as  true 
a  boy  as  any  beloved  twelve-year-old  that  ever 
snapped  a  marble  or  stuck  his  forefinger  into  a  pre- 
serve jar  on  an  upper  shelf  in  a  china  closet.  A 
charming  old  fellow  he  was,  too.  He  used  to  stop  to 
see  the  boys  play  in  the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries,  and 
I  knew  him  once  to  spend  a  whole  afternoon  in  the 
avenue  of  the  Champs  Elysees  looking  at  the  puppet 
shows  and  other  sights  with  the  rest  of  the  young- 
sters. He  told  me  afterwards  that  that  was  one  of 
the  happiest  days  of  his  life;  for  he  had  felt  as  if  he 
were  back  again  in  the  pleasant  time  before  he  knew 
any  thing  of  that  most  uncertain  of  all  uncertain 
things— the  science  of  medicine;  and  he  doubted 
whether  any  boy  there  had  enjoyed  the  cheap  amuse- 
ment more  than  himself.  I  envied  him,  for  I  knew 
that  he  who  retained  so  much  of  the  happy  spirit  of 
boyhood  could  not  have  outlived  all  of  its  generosity 
and  simplicity.  "Once  a  man  and  twice  a  child," 
says  the  old  proverb ;  and  I  cannot  help  thinking  that 
if  at  the  last  we  could  only  recall  something  of  the 
sincerity,  and  innocence,  and  unselfishness  of  our 
early  life,  second  childhood  would  indeed  be  a 
blessed  thing. 


JOSEPHINE 


A  BRIGHT-EYED,  fair,  young  maiden,  whose 
satchel  I  should  insist  upon  carrying  to  school 
for  her  every  morning  if  I  were  half  a  century 
younger,  came  to  me  a  day  or  two  after  the  publica- 
tion of  my  last  essay,  and,  placing  her  white,  taper 
fingers  in  my  rough,  Esau-like  hand,  said,  "I  liked 
your  piece  about  the  boys  very  much ;  and  now  I  hope 
that  you'll  write  something  about  girls."  "My  dear 
Nellie,"  replied  I,  "if  I  should  do  that  I  should  lose 
all  my  female  acquaintances.  I  have  a  weakness  for 
telling  the  truth,  and  there  are  some  subjects  con- 
cerning which  it  is  very  dangerous  to  speak  out  'the 
whole  truth  and  nothing  but  the  truth.'  '  The  gen- 
tle damsel  smiled,  and  looked 

"Modest  as  justice,  and  did  seem  a  palace 
For  the  crown'd  truth  to  dwell  in," 

as  she  still  urged  me  on,  and  refused  to  see  any  dan- 
ger in  my  giving  out  the  plainest  truth  about  girl- 
hood. She  had  no  fear,  though  all  the  truth  were 
told;  and  I  suppose  that  if  we  had  some  of  Nellie's 
purity  and  gentleness  remaining  in  our  sere  and 
selfish  hearts,  we  should  be  much  better  and  happier 
men  and  women,  and  should  dread  the  truth  as  little 
as  she  does.  But  I  must  not  begin  my  truth-telling 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

by  seeming  to  praise  too  highly,  though  it  must  be 
confessed,  even  at  my  time  of  life,  if  I  were  to  de- 
scribe the  charming  young  person  I  have  referred  to, 
with  the  merciless  fidelity  of  a  daguerreotype  and  an 
absence  of  hyperbole  worthy  of  the  late  Dr.  Bow- 
ditch's  work  on  Navigation,  I  should  seem  to  the 
unfortunate  "general  reader"  who  does  not  know 
Nell,  to  be  indulging  in  the  grossest  flattery,  and 
panting  poesy  would  toil  after  me  in  vain.  So  I  will 
put  aside  all  temptations  of  that  kind,  and  come  down 
to  the  plain  prose  of  my  subject. 

There  is,  in  fact,  very  little  that  can  be  said  about 
girlhood.  Those  calm  years  that  come  between  the 
commencement  of  the  bondage  of  the  pantalettes  and 
emancipation  from  the  tasks  of  school,  present  few 
salient  points  upon  which  the  essayist  (observe  he 
never  so  closely)  may  turn  a  neat  paragraph.  They 
offer  little  that  is  startling  or  attractive  either  to 
writer  or  reader, — 

"As  times  of  quiet  and  unbroken  peace, 
Though  for  a  nation  times  of  blessedness, 
Give  back  faint  echoes  from  the  historian's  page." 

The  rough  sports  of  boyhood,  the  out-door  life  which 
boys  always  take  to  so  naturally,  and  all  their  habits 
of  activity,  give  a  strength  of  light  and  shade  to  their 
early  years  which  is  not  to  be  found  in  girlhood.  It 
is  not  enough  to  say  that  there  is  no  difference  in 
kind,  but  simply  one  in  degree, — that  the  years  of 
boyhood  are  calm  and  happy,  and  that  those  of  girl- 
hood are  so  likewise,— that  the  former  resemble  the 
garish  sunshine,  and  the  latter  the  mitigated  splen- 
dour of  the  moon;  for  the  characters  of  boys  seem  to 

n  302] 


JOSEPHINE-GIRLHOOD  AND  GIRLS 

be  struck  in  a  sharper  die  than  those  of  girls,  which 
gives  them  an  absoluteness  quite  distinct  from  the 
feminine  grace  we  naturally  look  for  in  the  latter. 
The  free-hearted  boy,  plunging  into  all  sorts  of  fun 
without  a  thought  of  his  next  day's  arithmetic  lesson, 
and  with  a  charming  disregard  of  the  expense  of 
jackets  and  trousers,  and  the  gentle  girl,  who  clings 
to  her  mother's  side,  like  an  attendant  angel,  and 
contents  herself  with  teaching  long  lessons  to  docile 
paper  pupils  in  a  quiet  corner  by  the  fireside,  are 
representatives  of  two  distinct  classes  in  the  order  of 
nature,  and  (untheologically,  of  course,  I  might  add) 
of  grace.  There  is  not  a  greater  difference  between 
a  hockey  and  a  crochet  needle  than  there  is  between 
them. 

I  have,  as  a  general  thing,  a  greater  liking  for 
boys  than  for  girls ;  for  the  vanity  so  common  to  all 
mankind  is  not  developed  in  them  at  so  early  an  age 
as  in  the  latter.  Still  I  must  acknowledge  that  I  have 
seen  some  splendid  exceptions,  the  mere  recollection 
of  which  almost  tempts  me  to  draw  my  pen  through 
that  last  sentence.  Can  I  ever  forget — I  can  never 
forget— one  into  whose  years  of  girlhood  the  beauty 
and  grace  of  a  long,  pure  life  seemed  to  have  been 
compressed?  It  was  many  years  ago,  and  I  was 
younger  than  I  am  now — so  pardon  me  if  I  should 
seem  to  catch  a  little  enthusiasm  of  spirit  from  the 
remembrance  of  those  days.  Like  the  ancient  Queen 
of  Carthage,  Agnosco  veteris  vestigia  flamma.  I 
was  living  in  London  at  that  time,  or  rather  at 
Hampstead,  which  had  not  then  become  a  mere 
suburb  of  the  great  metropolis,  but  was  a  quiet  town, 
whose  bright  doorplates,  and  well-scoured  doorsteps, 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

and  clean  window  curtains  contrasted  finely  with  the 
dingy  brick  walls  of  its  houses,  and  impressed  the 
visitor  with  the  general  prosperity  and  quiet  respec- 
tability of  its  inhabitants.  In  my  daily  walks  to  and 
from  the  city,  I  frequently  met  a  gentleman  whose 
gray  hairs  and  simple  dignity  of  manners  always 
attracted  me  towards  him,  and  exacted  from  me  an 
involuntary  tribute  of  respectful  recognition.  One 
day  he  overtook  me  in  a  shower,  and  gave  me  the 
benefit  of  his  umbrella  and  his  friendship — for  an 
intimacy  which  ended  only  with  his  death  commenced 
between  us  from  that  hour.  He  was  a  gentleman  of 
good  family  and  education,  who  had  seen  thirty 
years  of  responsible  service  in  the  employ  of  the 
Honourable  East  India  Company,  had  attained  a 
competency,  and  had  forsworn  Leadenhall  Street  for 
a  pension  and  a  quiet  retreat  on  the  heights  of  Hamp- 
stead.  His  wife  was  a  lady  of  cultivated  tastes, 
whose  sober  wishes  never  learned  to  stray  from  the 
path  of  simple  domestic  duty,  and  the  presence  of 
the  books  in  which  she  found  her  daily  pleasures. 

"Type  of  the  wise,  who  soar,  but  never  roam ; 
True  to  the  kindred  points  of  Heaven  and  Home." 

Their  only  child,  "one  fair  daughter,  and  no  more," 
was  a  gentle  and  merry-hearted  creature,  who,  in  the 
short  and  murky  days  of  November,  filled  that  cot- 
tage with  a  more  than  June-like  sunshine.  Her 
parents  always  had  a  deep  sympathy  with  that  unfor- 
tunate Empress  of  France  whose  dismission  from 
the  throne  was  the  commencement  of  the  downward 
career  of  the  first  Napoleon,  and  bore  witness  to  it 
by  giving  her  name  to  their  only  child.  They  lived 

C  304  3 


JOSEPHINE-GIRLHOOD  AND  GIRLS 

only  three  or  four  doors  from  my  lodgings,  and  there 
were  few  days  passed  after  the  episode  of  the  um- 
brella in  which  I  did  not  find  a  welcome  in  their  quiet 
home.  Their  daughter  was  their  only  idol,  and  I 
soon  found  myself  a  convert  to  their  innocent  system 
of  paganism.  We  all  three  agreed  that  Josey  was 
the  incarnation  of  all  known  perfections,  and  the 
lapse  of  forty  years  has  not  sufficed  to  weaken  that 
conviction  in  my  mind.  She  had  risen  just  above  the 
horizon  of  girlhood,  and  the  natural  beauty  of  her 
character  made  the  beholder  content  to  forget  even 
the  promise  of  her  riper  years.  I  do  not  think  she 
was  what  the  world  calls  handsome.  I  sometimes 
distrust  my  judgment  in  the  matter  of  female  beauty; 
indeed,  some  of  my  candid  friends  have  told  me  that 
I  had  no  judgment  in  such  things.  Well,  as  I  was 
saying,  Josey  was  not  remarkable  for  personal 
beauty — in  fact,  I  think  I  remember  some  persons  of 
her  own  sex  who  thought  her  "very  plain"  —  "posi- 
tively homely"  —  and  wondered  what  there  was  at- 
tractive about  her.  There  are  circumstances  under 
which  I  should  not  have  hesitated  to  attribute  such 
remarks  to  motives  of  envy  and  jealousy;  but  as  they 
came  from  girls  whose  attractions  of  every  kind  were 
far  below  those  of  the  gentle  creature  whom  they  de- 
lighted to  criticise,  how  can  I  account  for  them? 
Josey's  complexion  was  dark — her  forehead,  like 
those  of  the  best  models  of  female  comeliness  among 
the  ancients,  low.  Her  teeth  were  pearly  and  uni- 
form, and  her  clear,  dark  eyes  seemed  to  reflect  the 
happiness  and  hope  which  were  the  companions  of 
her  youth.  Her  beauty  was  not  of  that  kind  which 
consists  in  mere  regularity  of  features;  it  was  far 

[305] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

superior  to  that.  You  could  discern  under  those 
traits,  none  of  which  were  conspicuous,  a  combina- 
tion of  mental  and  social  qualities  which  were  far 
above  the  fleeting  charms  that  delight  so  many,  and 
which  age,  instead  of  destroying,  would  increase  and 
perfect.  She  was  quiet  and  gentle,  without  being 
dull  or  moody;  light-hearted  and  cheery,  without 
being  frivolous ;  and  witty,  without  being  pert  or  con- 
ceited. Her  unaffected  goodness  of  heart  found 
many  an  opportunity  of  exercise.  I  often  heard  of 
her  among  the  poor,  and  among  those  who  needed 
words  of  consolation  even  more  than  the  necessaries 
of  life.  It  was  her  delight  to  intercede  with  the 
magistrate  who  had  inflicted  a  punishment  on  some 
disorderly  brother  of  one  of  her  poor  clients,  and  to 
obtain  his  pardon  by  promising  to  watch  over  him 
and  insure  his  future  good  behaviour;  and  there 
were  very  few,  among  the  most  reckless,  who  were 
not  restrained  by  the  thought  that  their  offences 
would  give  pain  to  the  kind-hearted  girl  who  had  so 
willingly  become  their  protector. 

During  the  months  that  I  lived  at  Hampstead  my 
intercourse  with  that  excellent  family  was  as  familiar 
as  if  I  had  been  one  of  their  own  kindred.  A  little 
attack  of  rheumatism,  which  confined  me  to  my  lodg- 
ing for  a  fortnight  or  three  weeks,  proved  the  con- 
stancy of  their  friendship.  The  old  gentleman  came 
daily  to  see  me — told  me  all  the  news  from  the  city, 
and  read  to  me;  the  mother  sent  me  some  of  her 
favourite  books;  and  Josey  came  to  get  assistance  in 
her  Latin  and  French,  and  brought  me  sundry  little 
pots  of  grape  jelly  and  other  preserves,  which  tasted 
all  the  sweeter  for  being  the  work  of  her  fair  hands. 


JOSEPHINE-GIRLHOOD  AND  GIRLS 

It  was  a  sad  parting  when  I  was  called  away  to 
America — sad  for  me;  for  I  told  them  that  I  hoped 
that  my  absence  from  England  would  be  but  tem- 
porary, when  I  felt  inwardly  that  it  might  extend  to 
several  years. 

Two  or  three  months  after  my  arrival  at  home,  I 
received  a  letter  from  the  old  gentleman,  written  in 
his  deliberate,  round,  clerk-like  style,  informing  me 
of  his  wife's  death.  A  note  was  enclosed  from  Josey, 
in  which  she  described  with  her  pencil  the  spot  where 
her  mother  was  buried  in  the  old  churchyard,  and 
told  me  of  her  progress  in  her  studies.  More  than  a 
year  passed  by  without  my  hearing  from  them  at  all, 
two  or  three  of  my  letters  to  them  having  miscarried. 
Nearly  seven  years  elapsed  before  I  visited  England 
again.  Two  years  before  that,  I  had  read  the  de- 
cease of  the  old  gentleman,  in  a  stray  London  news- 
paper. I  had  written  to  Josey,  sympathizing  with 
her  in  her  desolation,  but  had  received  no  answer. 
So,  the  day  after  my  arrival  in  London,  I  deter- 
mined to  make  a  search  for  the  beloved  Josey.  I 
went  to  Hampstead,  and  my  heart  beat  quicker  as  I 
approached  the  cottage  where  I  had  spent  so  many 
happy  hours.  My  throat  felt  a  little  choky,  as  I  rec- 
ognized the  neat  bit  of  hedge  before  the  door,  the 
graceful  vine  which  overhung  it,  and  the  familiar 
arrangement  of  the  flower  pots  in  the  frames  outside 
the  windows;  but  my  hopes  received  a  momentary 
check  when  I  found  a  strange  name  on  the  plate 
above  the  knocker.  I  knocked,  and  inquired  con- 
cerning the  former  occupants  of  the  house.  After  a 
severe  effort  to  overcome  the  Boeotian  stupidity  of 
the  housemaid,  she  ushered  me  into  the  little  break- 

£3073 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

fast  room,  and  said  she  would  "call  her  missus." 
Almost  before  I  had  time  to  look  about  me,  Josey 
entered  the  room.  The  little  girl  whose  Latin  exer- 
cises I  had  corrected,  and  who  had  always  lived  in 
my  memory  as  she  appeared  in  those  days,  suddenly 
came  before  me 

"A  perfect  woman,  nobly  planned, 
To  warn,  to  comfort,  and  command ; 
And  yet  a  spirit  still  and  bright 
With  something  of  an  angel  light." 

Yet  she  was  hardly  changed  at  all.  She  had  lost 
none  of  those  charming  qualities  which  had  made  the 
thought  of  her  precious  to  me  during  long  years  of 
absence.  She  had  gained  the  maturity  and  dignity 
of  womanhood  without  losing  any  of  the  simplicity 
and  light-heartedness  of  girlhood.  She  was  mar- 
ried. Her  husband  was  a  literary  man  of  consider- 
able reputation.  Though  only  in  middle  age,  he  was 
a  great  sufferer  with  the  gout.  He  was,  generally 
speaking,  a  patient  man;  but  I  found,  after  I  became 
intimate  with  him,  that  his  pains  sometimes  made 
him  express  himself  with  a  force  of  diction  some- 
what in  advance  of  the  religious  prejudices  of  his 
gentle  Josey,  who  tended  him  and  ministered  to  his 
wants  like  an  angel,  as  she  was.  But  excuse  me  for 
wandering  so  far  from  my  theme.  To  make  a  long 
story  short,  Josey  went  to  Italy  with  her  husband, 
who  had  been  ordered  thither  by  his  physicians,  and 
I  never  saw  her  afterwards.  She  deposited  her  hus- 
band's remains  in  the  cemetery  where  those  of  Shel- 
ley and  Keats  repose,  and  found  for  two  or  three 
years  a  consolation  for  her  bereaved  spirit  in  resi- 


JOSEPHINE-GIRLHOOD  AND  GIRLS 

dence  in  that  city  which  more  than  all  others  pro- 
claims to  our  unwilling  hearts  the  vanity  and 
transitoriness  of  this  world's  hopes,  and  the  glory  of 
the  unseen  eternal.  Years  after,  I  met  one  of  her 
husband's  friends  in  Paris,  who  told  me  that  some 
four  years  after  his  death,  she  had  entered  a  convent 
of  a  religious  order  devoted  to  the  reclaiming  of  the 
degraded  of  her  sex,  in  Brussels.  There  she  had 
found  a  fitting  occupation  for  the  natural  benevolence 
of  her  heart,  and  the  peace  which  the  world  could 
not  give.  She  had  concealed  the  glory  of  her  good 
works  under  her  vow  of  obedience— her  personality 
was  hidden  under  the  common  habit  of  her  Order — 
the  very  name  which  was  so  dear  to  me  had  been 
exchanged  for  another  on  the  day  that  saw  tier  cov- 
ered with  the  white  veil  of  the  novice.  I  was  about 
returning  to  England  from  the  continent  when  I 
heard  this,  and  I  resolved  to  take  Belgium's  fair 
capital  in  my  route.  I  found  the  convent  readily 
enough,  and  waited  in  its  uncarpeted  but  scrupulously 
clean  parlour  some  time  for  the  Lady  Superior.  She 
was  a  lady  of  dignified  mien,  with  the  clear  com- 
plexion, the  serene  brow,  and  the  dovelike  eyes  so 
common  among  nuns,  and  her  face  lighted  up,  as  she 
spoke,  with  a  gentle  smile,  which  seemed  almost  like 
a  presage  of  immortality.  I  explained  my  errand, 
and  she  told  me  that  the  good  English  sister  had 
been  dead  more  than  a  year.  The  intelligence  pained 
me,  and  it  gave  me  a  feeling  of  self-reproach  to 
notice  that  the  nun,  who  had  been  with  her  in  her  last 
hour,  spoke  of  her  as  if  she  had  merely  passed  into 
another  part  of  the  convent  we  were  in.  The  Su- 
perior, perceiving  my  emotion,  conducted  me  through 

[309] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

the  garden  of  the  convent  to  a  shady  corner  of  the 
grounds,  where  there  were  several  graves.  She 
stopped  before  a  mound,  over  which  a  rose  bush  bent 
affectionately,  as  if  its  white  blossoms  craved  some- 
thing of  the  purity  which  was  enshrined  beneath  it. 
At  its  head  was  a  simple  wooden  cross,  on  which  was 
inscribed  the  name  of  "Sister  Helen  Agnes,"  the 
date  of  her  death,  and  the  common  supplication  that 
she  might  rest  in  peace;  and  that  was  the  only  me- 
morial of  Josey  that  remained  to  me. 

I  have  not  forgotten,  dear  reader,  that  I  am  writ- 
ing about  girls ;  but  having  brought  forward  one  who 
always  seemed  to  me  to  be  about  as  near  perfection 
as  it  is  vouchsafed  to  poor  humanity  to  approach,  I 
could  not  help  following  her  to  the  end,  and  showing 
how  she  went  from  a  beautiful  girlhood  to  a  still 
more  beautiful  womanhood,  and  a  death  which  all 
of  us  might  envy;  and  how  lovely  and  harmonious 
was  her  whole  career.  For  I  feel  that  the  considera- 
tion of  the  contrast  which  most  of  the  young  female 
readers  of  these  pages  will  discover  between  them- 
selves and  Josey,  will  do  them  some  good. 

I  do  not  know  of  a  more  quietly  funny  sight  than 
a  group  of  school-girls,  all  talking  as  fast  as  their 
tongues  can  wag,  (forty-woman  power,)  and  cling- 
ing inextricably  together  like  a  parcel  of  macaroni,  a 
la  Napolitaine.  Their  independence  is  quite  re- 
freshing. Lady  Blessington  in  her  diamonds  never 
descended  the  grand  stajrcase  at  Covent  Garden 
Opera  House  with  half  the  consciousness  of  making 
a  sensation,  that  you  may  notice  in  these  school-girls 
whenever  you  take  your  walks  abroad.  It  is  delight- 
ful to  see  them  step  off  so  proudly,  and  look  you  in 


JOSEPHINE-GIRLHOOD  AND  GIRLS 

the  face  so  coolly,  thinking  all  the  time  of  just  nothing 
at  all.  Their  boldness  is  the  boldness  of  innocence; 
for  perfect  modesty  does  not  even  know  how  to 
blush.  How  vain  they  grow  as  they  advance  in  their 
teens !  How  careful  they  are  that  the  crinoline 
"sticks  out"  properly  before  they  venture  on  the 
road  to  school !  If  Mother  Goose  (of  blessed  mem- 
ory) could  take  a  look  into  this  world  now,  she 
would  wish  to  revise  her  ancient  rhyme  to  her 
patrons, — 

"Come  with  a  whoop— come  with  a  call,"  &c., — 

for  she  would  find  that  it  is  now  their  custom  to  come 
with  a  hoop  when  they  come  for  a  call. 

When  unhappy  Romeo  stands  in  old  Capulet's 
garden,  under  the  pale  beams  of  the  "envious  moon," 
and  watches  the  unconscious  Juliet  upon  the  balcony, 
he  utters,  in  the  course  of  his  incoherent  soliloquial 
apostrophe,  these  remarkable  words  concerning  that 
interesting  young  person : — 

"She  speaks,  yet  she  says  nothing." 

I  have  seen  many  young  ladies  of  Juliet's  time 
of  life  in  my  day  of  whom  the  same  thing  might 
be  said.  They  indeed  speak,  yet  say  nothing.  Yet 
take  them  on  such  a  subject  as  the  trimming  of 
a  new  bonnet  for  Easter  Sunday,  or  any  of  those  en- 
tertaining topics  more  or  less  connected  with  the 
adornment  of  their  persons,  and  how  voluble  they 
are!  To  the  stronger  sex,  which  of  course  cares 
nothing  about  dress,  being  entirely  free  from  vanity, 
the  terms  used  in  their  never-ending  colloquies  on 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

such  themes  are  mere  unmeaning  words;  but  I  must 
do  the  gentler  side  of  humanity  the  justice  to  say  that 
they  are  not  all  vanity,  as  their  fathers  and  husbands 
find  to  their  dismay,  when  the  quarterly  bills  come  in, 
that  gimp,  and  flounces,  and  trimming  generally, 
have  a  real,  tangible  existence. 

How  sentimental  they  are !  In  my  young  days 
albums  were  all  the  rage  among  young  ladies;  but 
now  they  seem  to 'be  somewhat  out  of  date,  and 
young  ministers  have  taken  their  place.  What  pains 
will  they  not  take  to  get  a  bow  from  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Simkins !  They  swarm  around  him  after  service, 
like  flies  around  the  bung  of  a  molasses  cask. 
Raphael  never  had  such  a  face  as  his;  Massillon 
never  preached  as  he  does.  What  a  wilderness  of 
worsted  work  are  they  not  willing  to  travel  over  for 
his  sake !  How  do  they  exhaust  their  inventive  fac- 
ulties in  the  search  after  new  patterns  for  lamp  mats, 
watch  cases,  pen  wipers,  and  slippers  to  encase  the 
feet  at  which  they  delight  to  sit !  But  when  Simkins 
marries  old  Thompson's  youngest  daughter  and  a 
snug  property,  he  finds  a  sad  abatement  in  his  popu- 
larity. The  Rev.  Mr.  Jenkins,  a  young  preacher 
with  a  face  every  whit  as  milk-and-watery  as  his  own, 
succeeds  to  the  throne  he  occupied,  and  reigns  in  his 
stead  among  the  volatile  devotees;  and  Simkins  then 
sees  that  his  popularity  was  no  more  an  evidence  of 
the  favour  his  preaching  of  the  gospel  found  among 
those  thoughtless  young  people  than  was  the  popu- 
larity of  the  good-looking  light  comedian,  after 
whom  the  girls  ran  as  madly  as  they  did  after  his 
own  white  neckerchief  and  nicely-brushed  black 
frock  coat. 


JOSEPHINE-GIRLHOOD  AND  GIRLS 

Exaggeration  is  one  of  the  great  faults  of  girl- 
hood. Whatever  meets  their  eyes  is  either  "splen- 
did" or  "horrid.'*  They  delight  to  exaggerate  their 
likes  and  dislikes.  Self-restraint  seems  to  be  a  term 
not  contained  in  their  lexicon.  They  take  a  momen- 
tary fancy  to  a  young  man,  and  flatter  him  with  their 
smiles  until  some  new  face  takes  his  place  in  their 
fleeting  memory.  In  this  way  many  young  hearts  are 
frittered  away  in  successive  flirtations  before  their 
possessors  have  reached  womanhood.  But  it  would 
be  wrong  to  confine  action  from  mere  blind  impulse 
and  exaggeration  to  young  girls  alone.  I  think  it  is 
St.  Paul  who  gives  us  some  good  counsel  about 
"speaking  the  truth  in  love."  I  fear  that  very  few 
victims  of  the  tender  passion,  from  Pyramus  and 
Thisbe  down  to  Petrarch  and  Laura,  and  from  the 
latter  couple  down  to  Mr.  Smith  with  Miss  Brown 
hanging  on  his  arm, — who  have  not  sadly  needed  the 
advice  of  the  Apostle  of  the  Gentiles.  I  have  seen 
very  few  people  in  my  day  who  really  speak  the 
truth  in  love.  Therefore  I  will  not  blame  girls  for 
a  fault  which  is  common  to  all  mankind. 

Impulse  is  commonly  supposed  to  be  inconsistent 
with  cunning;  but  in  most  girls  I  think  the  two  things 
are  singularly  combined.  I  am  told  that  there  is  an 
academy  in  this  city,  frequented  by  many  young  wo- 
men, known  as  the  School  of  Design.  The  fact  is  a 
gratifying  one  to  me;  for  my  observation  of  girlish 
nature  had  led  me  to  suppose  that  there  were  very 
few  indeed  of  the  young  ladies  of  these  days  who 
required  any  tuition  in  the  arts  of  design.  1  hail  the 
fact  as  a  good  omen  for  the  sex.  Action  from  im- 
pulse carries  its  young  victims  to  the  extremes  of 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

good  and  evil.  Queen  Dido  is  a  fair  type  of  the 
majority  of  her  sex.  Defeated  in  their  hopes,  they 
are  willing  to  make  a  funeral  pile  of  all  that  remains 
to  them.  But  there  is  a  spirit  of  generosity  in  them 
which  does  not  find  a  place  in  the  hearts  of  men.  It 
was  the  part  of  Eve  to  bring  death  into  this  world, 
and  all  our  woe,  by  her  inquisitiveness  and  credulity; 
but  it  was  reserved  for  Adam  to  inaugurate  the 
meanness  of  mankind  by  laying  all  the  blame  to  his 
silly  little  wife.  The  accusation  ought  to  have  blis- 
tered Adam's  cowardly  tongue. 

But  I  am  making  a  long  preachment,  and  yet  I 
have  said  very  little.  I  must  leave  my  young  friends, 
however,  to  draw  their  own  lessons  from  the  por- 
trait I  have  given  of  one  whose  perfections  would 
far  outweigh  the  silliness  and  vanity  of  a  generation 
of  girls.  Let  them  take  the  gentle  Josey  as  the 
model  of  their  youth,  and  they  will  not  wish  to  sculp- 
ture their  later  career  after  any  less  perfect  shape. 
There  will  then  be  fewer  heartless  flirts,  fewer  vain 
exhibitors  of  the  works  of  the  milliner  and  dress- 
maker parading  the  streets,  and  more  true  women 
presiding  over  the  homes  of  America.  The  imita- 
tion of  her  virtues  will  be  found  a  better  preservative 
of  beauty  than  any  eau  lustrale;  for  it  will  create  a 
beauty  which  "time's  effacing  fingers"  are  powerless 
to  destroy,  and  give  to  those  who  practise  it  a  serene 
and  lovely  old  age,  whose  recollection  of  the  past, 
instead  of  awakening  any  self-reproach,  shall  be  a 
source  of  perpetual  benediction. 


C3I43 


SHAKESPEARE  AND   HIS 
COMMENTATORS 

IT  was  a  favourite  wish  of  the  beneficent  Caligula 
that  all  mankind  had  but  one  neck,  that  he  might 
finish  them  off  at  a  single  chop.  It  would  ill  comport 
with  my  known  modesty,  were  I  to  lay  claim  to  any 
thing  like  the  all-embracing  humanity  of  the  old 
Roman  philanthropist ;  but  I  must  acknowledge  that 
I  have  frequently  felt  inclined  to  apply  his  pious  aspi- 
ration to  the  commentators  on  Shakespeare.  Impa- 
tience is  not  my  prevailing  weakness;  but  these 
pestilent  annotators  have  often  been  instrumental  in 
convincing  me  that  I  am  no  stoic.  I  have  frequently 
regretted  the  days  of  my  youth,  when  no  envious 
commentary  obscured  the  brilliancy  of  that  genius 
which  has  consecrated  the  language  through  which  it 
finds  utterance,  and  made  it  venerable  to  the  scholars 
of  all  lands  and  ages.  My  love  of  Shakespeare,  like 
the  gout  which  has  been  stinging  my  right  foot  all 
the  morning,  is  hereditary.  My  revered  grand- 
mother was  very  fond  of  solid  English  literature. 
She  had  not  had,  it  is  true,  the  advantages  which  the 
young  people  of  the  present  day  rejoice  in;  she  had 
not  studied  in  any  of  those  seminaries  which  polish 
off  an  education  in  a  most  Arabian-Nightsy  style  of 
expedition,  and  send  a  young  lady  home  in  the  middle 
of  her  teens,  accomplished  in  innumerous  ologies, 
and  knowing  little  or  nothing  that  is  really  useful,  or 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

that  will  attract  her  to  intellectual  pursuits  or  pleas- 
ure in  after  life.  She  had  acquired  what  is  infinitely 
better  than  the  superficial  omniscience  which  is  so 
much  cultivated  in  these  days.  The  more  active 
duties  of  life  pleased  her  not;  and  Shakespeare  was 
the  never-failing  resource  of  her  leisure  hours.  Mr. 
Addison's  Spectator  was  for  her  a  "treasure  of  con- 
tentment, a  mine  of  delight,  and,  with  regard  to 
style,  the  best  book  in  the  world."  I  shall  never  for- 
get that  happy  day  (anterior  even  to  the  jacket  era 
of  my  life)  when  she  took  me  upon  her  knee,  and 
read  to  me  the  speeches  of  Marullus,  and  Mark 
Antony,  and  Brutus.  In  that  hour  I  became  as  sin- 
cere a  devotee  as  ever  bent  down  before  the  shrine 
of  Shakespeare's  genius.  Nor  has  that  innocent 
fanaticism  abated  any  of  its  ardour  under  the  weight 
laid  upon  me  by  increasing  years.  The  theatre  has 
lost  many  of  its  old  charms  for  me.  The  friend- 
ships of  youth — the  only  enduring  intimacies,  for  our 
palms  grow  callous  in  the  promiscuous  intercourse  of 
the  world,  and  cannot  easily  receive  new  impressions 
— have  either  been  terminated  by  that  inexorable 
power  whose  chilling  touch  is  merciless  alike  to  love 
and  enmity,  or  have  been  interfered  with  by  the  vary- 
ing pursuits  of  life.  But  Shakespeare  still  maintains 
his  wonted  sway,  and  my  loyalty  to  him  has  not  been 
disturbed  by  any  of  the  revolutionary  movements 
which  have  made  such  changes  in  most  other  things. 
Martin  Farquhar  Tupper  has  written,  but  I  am  so 
old-fashioned  in  my  prejudices  that  I  find  myself 
constantly  turning  to  my  Shakespeare,  in  preference 
even  to  that  gifted  and  proverbially  philosophic 
bard. 

C3i6] 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMMENTATORS 

But  I  am  wandering.  From  the  day  I  have  men- 
tioned, Robinson  Crusoe  was  obliged  to  abdicate, 
and  England's  "monarch  bard"  (as  Mr.  Sprague 
calls  Anne  Hathaway's  husband)  reigned  in  his 
stead.  I  first  devoured  the  Julius  Caesar.  I  say 
"devoured,"  for  no  other  word  will  express  the 
eager  earnestness  with  which  I  read.  The  last  time 
I  read  that  play  through,  it  was  "within  a  bowshot 
where  the  Caesars  dwelt,"  and  but  a  few  minutes' 
walk  from  the  palace  which  now  holds  great  Pom- 
pey's  statua,  at  whose  foot  the  mighty  Julius  fell. 
Increase  of  appetite  grew  rapidly  by  what  it  fed  on, 
and  I  was  not  long  in  learning  as  much  about  the 
black-clad  prince,  the  homeless  king,  the  exacting 
usurer,  the  fat  knight  and  his  jolly  companions,  the 
remorseful  Thane,  and  generous,  jealous  Moor,  as 
I  knew  about  Brutus  and  the  other  red  republican  as- 
sassins of  imperial  Rome.  My  love  of  Shakespeare 
was  greatly  edified  by  a  friendship  which  I  formed 
in  my  earliest  foreign  journeyings.  It  was  before 
the  days  of  railways, — which,  convenient  as  they  are, 
have  robbed  travelling  of  half  its  zest,  by  rendering 
it  so  common.  I  had  been  making  a  little  tour 
through  the  north  of  France.  I  had  admired  the 
white  caps  and  pious  simplicity  of  the  peasants  of 
Normandy,  and  had  drunk  in  that  exaltation  of  soul 
which  the  lofty  nave  of  the  majestic  Cathedral  of 
Amiens  always  imparts,  and  was  about  returning  to 
Paris,  when  a  rheumatic  attack  arrested  my  progress 
and  prolonged  my  stay  in  the  pleasant  city  of  Douai. 
I  there  met  accidentally  with  an  English  monk  of 
that  grand  old  Benedictine  order,  whose  history  for 
more  than  twelve  centuries  has  been  the  history  of 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

civilization,  and  literature,  and  religion.  He  was 
descended  from  one  of  those  old  families  which  re- 
fused to  modify  their  creed  at  the  demand  of  a 
divorce-seeking  king.  He  was  a  man  of  clear  in- 
tellect and  fascinating  simplicity  of  character.  He 
seemed  to  carry  sunshine  with  him  wherever  he  went. 
He  occupied  a  professional  chair  in  the  English  Col- 
lege attached  to  the  Benedictine  Monastery  at  Douai, 
and  when  his  class  hours  were  ended,  he  daily  came 
to  visit  me.  His  sensible  and  sprightly  conversation 
did  more  towards  untying  the  rheumatic  knots  in 
my  poor  shoulder,  than  all  the  pills  and  lotions  for 
which  M .  le  Medecin  charged  me  so  roundly.  When 
I  visited  him  in  his  cell,  I  found  that  a  well-worn 
copy  of  Shakespeare  was  the  only  companion  of  his 
Breviary,  his  Aquinas  and  St.  Bernard  on  his  study 
table.  He  loved  Shakespeare  for  himself  alone.  He 
never  used  him  as  a  lay  figure  on  which  he  might 
display  the  drapery  of  a  pedant.  He  hated  com- 
mentators as  heartily  as  a  man  so  sincerely  religious 
can  hate  any  thing  except  sin,  and  was  as  earnest  in 
his  predilection  for  Shakespeare,  "without  note  or 
comment,"  as  his  dissenting  fellow-countrymen 
would  have  wished  him  to  be  for  a  similar  edition  of 
the  only  other  inspired  book  in  the  world.  He  had 
his  theories,  however,  concerning  Shakespeare's 
characters,  and  we  often  talked  them  over  together; 
but  I  must  do  him  the  justice  to  say  that  he  never 
published  any  of  them.  I  always  regarded  this  fact 
as  a  splendid  evidence  of  the  entireness  of  his  self- 
abnegation,  and  of  his  extraordinary  advancement  in 
the  path  of  religious  perfection.  Many  have  taken 
the  three  monastic  vows  by  which  he  was  bound,  and 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMMENTATORS 

have  lived  up  to  them  with  conscientious  fidelity;  but 
few  scholars  have  studied  Shakespeare  as  he  did,  and 
yet  resisted  the  temptation  to  tell  the  world  all  about 
it  in  a  book. 

Mousing  the  other  day  in  the  library  of  a  venera- 
ble citizen  of  Boston,  who  is  no  less  skilled  in  the 
gospel  (let  us  hope)  than  in  the  law,  I  stumbled  over 
a  seedy-looking  folio  containing  A  Treatise  of  Orig- 
inal Sinne,  by  one  Anthony  Burgesse,  who  flourished 
in  England  something  more  than  two  centuries  ago. 
One  of  the  discoloured  fly-leaves  of  this  entertaining 
tome  informed  me,  in  a  hand-writing  which  resem- 
bled a  dilapidated  rail-fence  looked  at  from  the  win- 
dow of  an  express  train,  that  Jacobus  Keith  me 
-possedit,  An.  Dom.  1655 ;  and  also  bore  this  inscrip- 
tion, so  pertinent  to  my  present  theme :  "Expositors 
are  wise  when  they  are  not  otherwise."  I  feel  that  it 
is  safe  to  leave  my  readers  to  make  the  application  of 
this  apothegm  to  the  Shakespearean  annotators  of 
their  acquaintance,  so  few  of  whom  are  wise,  so 
many  otherwise.  I  think  it  was  the  late  Mr.  Hazlitt 
who  said  (and  if  it  was  hot,  it  ought  to  have  been) 
that  if  you  desire  to  know  to  what  sublimity  human 
genius  is  capable  of  ascending,  you  must  read  Shake- 
speare; but  that  if  you  seek  to  ascertain  to  what  a 
depth  of  imbecility  the  intellect  of  man  may  be 
brought  down,  you  must  read  his  commentators. 

Notwithstanding  the  low  estimate  which  I  am  in- 
clined to  place  upon  the  labour  of  the  majority  of  the 
commentators  on  Shakespeare,  still  I  have  often  felt 
a  strong  temptation  to  enroll  myself  among  them. 
Not  all  their  stupidity  in  explaining  things  which  are 
clear  to  the  meanest  capacity,  not  all  their  pedantry 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

in  elucidating  matters  which  are  simply  inexplicable, 
not  all  their  inordinate  voluminousness,  could  quench 
my  ambition  to  fasten  my  roll  of  waste  paper  to  the 
bob  (already  so  unwieldy)  of  the  Shakespearean 
kite.  Others  have  soared  into  fame  by  such  means; 
why  should  not  I?  We  ought  not  to  study  Shake- 
speare so  many  years  for  nothing,  and  I  feel  that  a 
sacred  duty  would  be  neglected  if  the  result  of  my 
researches  were  withheld  from  my  suffering  fellow- 
students.  But  let  me  be  more  merciful  than  other 
commentators;  let  me  confine  my  remarks  to  a  single 
play.  From  that  one  you  may  learn  the  tenor  of  my 
theories  concerning  the  others;  and  if  you  wish  for 
another  specimen,  I  shall  consider  that  I  have 
achieved  an  unheard-of  triumph  in  this  department 
of  literature. 

The  tragedy  of  Hamlet  has  always  been  regarded 
as  one  of  the  most  creditable  of  Shakespeare's  per- 
formances. It  needs  no  new  commendation  from 
me.  Dramatic  composition  has  made  great  progress 
within  the  two  hundred  and  sixty  years  that  have 
elapsed  since  Hamlet  was  written,  yet  few  better 
things  are  produced  nowadays.  We  may  as  well 
acknowledge  the  humiliating  fact  that  Hamlet,  with 
all  its  age,  is  every  whit  as  good  as  if  it  had  been 
written  since  Lady  Day,  and  were  announced  on  the 
playbills  of  to-morrow  night,  with  one  of  Mr.  Bou- 
cicault's  most  eloquent  and  elaborate  prefaces.  The 
character  of  Hamlet  has  been  much  discussed,  but, 
with  all  due  respect  for  the  genius  of  those  who  have 
fatigued  their  reader  with  their  treatment  of  the 
subject,  I  would  humbly  suggest  that  they  are  all 
wrong.  Hamlet  resembles  a  picture  which  has  been 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMMENTATORS 

scoured,  and  retouched,  and  varnished,  and  restored, 
until  you  can  hardly  see  any  thing  of  the  original. 
Critics  and  commentators  have  bedaubed  the  orig- 
inal character  so  thoroughly,  and  those  credulous 
people  who  rejoice  that  Chatham's  language  is  their 
mother  tongue,  have  heard  so  much  of  their  estimate 
of  Hamlet's  character,  that  they  receive  them  on 
faith,  flattering  themselves  all  the  while  that  they 
are  paying  homage  to  the  Hamlet  of  Shakespeare. 
High-flown  philosophy  exerts  its  powers  upon  the 
theme,  and  Goethe  gives  it  as  his  opinion  that  the 
dramatist  wished  to  portray  the  effects  of  a  great 
action,  imposed  as  a  duty  upon  a  mind  too  feeble  for 
its  accomplishment,  and  compares  it  to  an  oak 
planted  in  a  china  vase,  proper  to  receive  only  the 
most  delicate  flowers,  and  which  flies  to  pieces  as 
soon  as  the  roots  begin  to  strike  out. 

Now  let  us  drop  all  this  metaphysical  and  poetical 
cant,  and  go  back  to  the  play  itself.  Shakespeare 
will  prove  his  own  best  expositor,  if  we  read  him 
with  docile  minds,  having  previously  instructed  our- 
selves concerning  the  history  of  the  time  of  which  he 
wrote.  There  is  a  tradition  common  in  the  north  of 
Ireland  that  Hamlet's  father  was  a  native  of  that 
country,  named  Howndale,  and  that  he  followed  the 
trade  of  a  tailor;  that  he  was  captured  by  the  Danes, 
in  one  of  their  expeditions  against  that  fair  island, 
and  carried  to  Jutland;  that  he  married  and  set  up  in 
business  again  in  that  cold  region,  but  that  he  after- 
wards forsook  the  sartorial  for  the  regal  line,  by 
usurping  the  throne  of  Denmark.  The  tradition 
represents  him  to  have  been  a  man  of  violent  char- 
acter, a  hard  drinker,  and  altogether  a  most  unprin- 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

cipled  and  unamiable  person,  though  an  excellent 
tailor.  Now,  if  we  take  the  old  chronicle  of  Saxo 
Grammaticus,  (Historia  Danorum,}  from  which 
Shakespeare  drew  the  plot  for  his  tragedy,  we  shall 
find  there  little  that  does  not  harmonize  with  this 
tradition.  Saxo  Grammaticus  tells  us  that  Hamlet 
was  the  son  of  Horwendal,  who  was  a  famous  pirate 
of  Jutland,  whom  the  king,  Huric,  feared  so  much, 
that,  to  propitiate  him,  he  was  obliged  to  appoint 
him  governor  of  Jutland,  and  afterwards  to  give 
him  his  daughter  Gertrude  in  marriage.  Thus  he 
obtained  the  throne.  The  old  Irish  name,  Hown- 
dale,  might  easily  have  been  corrupted  into  Horwen- 
dal by  the  jaw-breaking  Northmen,  and  for  the  rest, 
the  Danish  chronicle  and  the  Irish  tradition  are  per- 
fectly consistent.  That  there  was  frequent  commu- 
nication at  that  early  period  between  Denmark  and 
Ireland,  I  surely  need  not  take  the  trouble  to  prove. 
All  the  early  chronicles  of  both  of  those  countries 
bear  witness  to  it.  It  was  to  the  land  evangelized  by 
St.  Patrick  that  Denmark  was  indebted  for  the  bless- 
ings of  education  and  the  Christian  faith.  But  the 
visits  of  the  Danes  were  not  dictated  by  any  holy 
zeal  for  the  salvation  or  mental  advancement  of 
their  benefactors,  if  we  may  believe  all  the  stories  of 
their  piratical  expeditions.  An  Irish  monk  of  the 
great  monastery  of  Banchor,  who  wrote  very  good 
Latin  for  the  age  in  which  he  lived,  alludes  to  this 
period  in  his  country's  history  in  a  poem,  one  line  of 
which  is  sometimes  quoted,  even  now:— 

Timeo  Danaos  et  dona  ferentes. 
"Time  was,  O  Danes,  we  feared  your  gifts." 

C322] 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMMENTATORS 

The  great  Danish  poet,  QEhlenschlasger,  makes  fre- 
quent allusions  in  the  course  of  his  epic,  The  Gods  of 
the  North,  to  the  relations  that  once  existed  between 
Denmark  and  Ireland,  and  to  the  fact  that  his  native 
land  received  from  Ireland  the  custom  of  imbibing 
spirituous  liquors  in  large  quantities. 

Hamlet's  Irish  parentage  would  naturally  be  con- 
cealed as  much  as  possible  by  him,  as  it  might 
prejudice  his  claims  to  the  throne  of  Denmark; 
therefore  we  can  hardly  expect  to  find  the  ancient 
legend  confirmed  in  the  play,  except  in  a  casual  man- 
ner. The  free,  outspoken,  Irish  nature  would  make 
itself  known  occasionally.  Thus  we  find  that  when 
Horatio  tells  him  that  "there  's  no  offence,"  he  re- 
bukes him  with 

"Yes,  by  St.  Patrick,  but  there  is,  Horatio!" 

There  certainly  needs  no  ghost  come  from  the  grave 
to  tell  us  that  no  true-born  Scandinavian  would  have 
sworn  in  an  unguarded  moment  by  the  Apostle  of 
Ireland.  Again,  when  Hamlet  thinks  of  killing  his 
uncle,  the  wrongful  king,  he  apostrophizes  himself 
by  the  name  which  he  probably  bore  when  he  as- 
sisted his  father  (whose  death  he  wishes  to  avenge) 
in  his  shop  in  Jutland: — 

"Now,  might  I  do  it,  Pat,  now  he  is  praying." 

Then,  too,  he  speaks  to  Horatio  of  the  "funeral 
baked  meats"  coldly  furnishing  forth  the  marriage 
table  at  his  mother's  second  espousal.  The  custom 
of  baking  meats  is  as  well  known  to  be  of  Irish  ori- 
gin, as  that  of  roasting  them  is  to  be  peculiar  to  the 
northern  nations  of  continental  Europe. 

C3233 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

The  frequent  allusions  in  the  course  of  the  play  to 
drinking  customs  not  only  prove  that  Hamlet  de- 
scended from  that  nation  whose  hospitality  is  its 
greatest  fault,  but  that  he  and  his  family  were  far 
from  being  the  refined  and  philosophic  people  some 
of  the  commentators  would  have  us  believe.  Thus 
he  promises  his  old  companion, — 

"We  '11  teach  you  to  drink  deep  ere  you  depart," — 

which  the  most  prejudiced  person  will  freely  allow 
to  be  truly  a  Cor&onian  phrase.  This  frailty  of  the 
family  may  be  seen  throughout  the  play.  In  the  last 
scene,  it  is  especially  apparent.  All  the  royal  family 
of  Denmark  seem  to  have  joined  an  intemperance 
society.  The  queen  even,  in  spite  of  her  husband's 
remonstrances,  joins  in  the  carousal.  Hamlet,  too, 
while  he  is  dying,  starts  up  on  hearing  Horatio  say, 
"Here's  yet  some  liquor  left,"  and  insists  upon  the 
cup  being  given  to  him.  I  know  that  it  may  be  urged, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  in  the  scene  preceding  the 
first  appearance  of  the  ghost  before  Hamlet,  he  in- 
dulges in  some  remarks  which  would  prove  him  to 
have  entertained  sentiments  becoming  his  com- 
patriot, the  noble  Father  Mathew.  Speaking  of  the 
custom  of  draining  down  such  frequent  draughts  of 
Rhenish,  he  pronounces  it  to  his  mind 

"a  custom 
More  honoured  in  the  breach  than  the  observance." 

It  must  be  remembered  that  the  occasion  on  which 
this  speech  was  uttered  was  a  solemn  one.  Under 
such  supernatural  circumstances  old  Silenus  or  the 
King  of  Prussia  himself  might  be  pardoned  for  grow- 

D24  J 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMMENTATORS 

ing  somewhat  homiletic  on  the  subject  of  temper- 
ance. The  conclusion  of  this  speech  has  given  the 
commentators  a  fine  chance  to  exercise  their  in- 
genuity. 

"The  dram  of  bale 

Doth  all  the  noble  substance  often  doubt 

To  his  own  scandal." 

They  have  called  it  the  "dram  of  base,"  the  "dram 
of  eale,"  &c.,  and  then  have  been  as  much  in  the  dark 
as  before.  Some  have  thought  that  Shakespeare  in- 
tended to  have  written  it  "the  dram  of  Bale,"  as  a 
sly  hit  at  Dr.  John  Bale,  the  first  Protestant  Bishop 
of  Ossory  in  Ireland,  who  was  an  unscrupulous 
dram-drinker  as  well  as  dramatist,  for  he  wrote  a 
play  called  "Kynge  Johan,"  which  was  reprinted 
under  the  editorial  care  of  my  friend,  Mr.  J.  O. 
Halliwell,  by  the  Camden  Society,  in  1838.  But  this 
attempt  to  make  it  reflect  upon  the  Ossory  prelate  is 
entirely  uncalled  for.  A  little  research  would  have 
showed  that  bale  was  a  liquor  somewhat  resembling 
our  whiskey  of  the  true  R.  G.  brand,  the  consump- 
tion of  which  in  the  dram-shops  of  his  country  the 
Prince  Hamlet  so  earnestly  deplored.  The  great 
Danish  philosopher,  V.  Scheerer  Homboegger,  in 
his  autobiography,  speaks  of  it,  and  says  that  like  all 
the  Danes  he  prefers  it  to  either  wine  or  ale,  or 
water  even:  Der  er  vand,  her  er  vun  og  oel, — men 
attested  BAELE  drikker  saaledes  de  Dansker.  ( Auto- 
biog.  II.  xiii.  Ed.  Copenhag.) 

As  to  the  proofs  that  Hamlet's  family  was  closely 
connected  with  the  tailoring  interest,  they  are  so 
thickly  scattered  through  the  entire  tragedy,  and  are 
so  apparent  even  to  the  casual  reader,  that,  even  if 

[325:1 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

I  had  room,  it  would  only  be  necessary  to  mention  a 
few  of  the  principal  ones.  In  the  very  first  scene  in 
which  he  is  introduced,  Hamlet  talks  in  an  experi- 
enced manner  about  his  "inky  cloak,"  "suits  of  sol- 
emn black,"  "forms"  and  "modes,"  and  tries  to 
defend  himself  from  the  suspicion  which  he  feels  is 
attached  to  him  by  many  of  the  courtiers,  by  saying 
plainly,  "I  know  not  seams."  This  first  speech  of 
Hamlet's  is  a  key  to  the  wanton  insincerity  of  his 
character.  His  mother  has  begged  him  to  change 
his  clothes,— to  "cast  his  nighted  colour  off," — and 
he  answers  her  requests  with,  "I  shall  in  all  my  best 
obey  you,  madam;"  yet  it  is  notorious  that  he  heeds 
not  this  promise,  but  wears  black  to  the  end  of  his 
career. 

He  repeatedly  uses  the  expressions  which  a  tailor 
would  naturally  employ.  His  figures  of  speech  fre- 
quently smell  of  the  shop.  As,  for  instance,  he  says 
to  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern,  "The  appurte- 
nance of  welcome  is  fashion  and  ceremony.  Let  me 
comply  with  you  in  this  garb ;"  in  the  scene  preceding 
the  play  he  declares  that,  though  the  devil  himself 
wear  black,  he'll  "have  a  suit  of  sables."  In  the 
interview  with  his  mother,  who  may  be  supposed  not 
to  have  forgotten  the  early  history  of  the  family,  he 
uses  such  figures  with  still  greater  freedom : — 

"That  monster  custom  who  all  sense  doth  eat 
Of  habit's  devil,  is  angel  yet  in  this ; 
That  to  the  use  of  actions  fair  and  good 
He  likewise  gives  a  frock  or  livery, 
That  aptly  is  put  on." 

In  his  instruction  to  the  players  he  speaks  of  tearing 
"a  passion  to  tatters,  to  very  rags"  and  says  of  cer- 

£326] 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMMENTATORS 

tain  actors  that  when  he  saw  them  it  seemed  to  him 
as  if  "some  of  nature's  journeymen  had  made  men 
and  not  made  them  well."  In  the  fourth  act,  he  calls 
Rosencrantz  a  sponge. 

What  better  evidence  of  the  skill  of  Hamlet  and 
his  father  in  their  common  trade  can  we  have  than 
that  afforded  by  the  fair  Ophelia,  who  speaks  of  the 
Prince  as  "the  glass  of  fashion  and  the  mould  of 
form"?  In  the  chamber  scene  with  his  mother, 
Hamlet  is  taken  entirely  off  his  guard  by  the  sudden 
appearance  of  his  father's  ghost,  whom  he  apos- 
trophizes, not  in  the  set  phrases  which  he  used  when 
Horatio  and  Marcellus  were  by,  but  as  "a  king  of 
shreds  and  patches."  Old  Polonius  does  not  wish 
his  daughter  to  marry  a  tailor,  but  is  too  polite  to  tell 
her  all  of  his  objections  to  Lord  Hamlet's  suit;  so  he 
cloaks  his  reasons  under  these  figures  of  speech,  in- 
stead of  telling  her,  out  of  whole  cloth,  that  Hamlet 
is  a  tailor,  and  the  match  will  never  do  :— 

"Do  not  believe  his  vows,  for  they  are  brokers, 
Not  of  that  dye  which  there  in  vestments  show, 
But  implorators  of  unholy  suits,"  &c. 

Some  late  editions  of  the  Bard  make  the  second  line 
of  this  passage  read,— 

"Not  of  that  die  which  their  investments  show," 


which  is  as  evident  a  corruption  of  the  text  as  any  of 
those  detected  by  the  indefatigable  Mr.  Payne  Col- 
lier. 

If  any  further  proof  is  needed  of  a  matter  which 
must  be  clear  to  every  reasoning  mind,  it  may  be 
found  in  that  solemn  scene  in  which  the  Prince,  op- 

C3273 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

pressed  by  the  burden  of  a  life  embittered  and  de- 
feated in  its  highest  aims,  meditates  suicide.  Now, 
if  there  is  a  time  when  all  affectation  of  worldly  rank 
would  be  likely  to  be  forgotten  and  swallowed  up  in 
the  contemplation  of  the  terrible  deed  which  occu- 
pies the  mind,  it  is  such  a  time  as  this.  And  here  we 
find  Shakespeare  as  true  as  Nature  herself.  The 
soldier,  weary  of  life,  uses  the  sword  his  enemies 
once  feared,  to  end  his  troubles.  Hamlet's  mind 
overleaps  the  interval  of  his  princely  life,  and  the 
weapon  which  is  most  naturally  suggested  by  his 
youthful  career  is  "a  bare  bodkin." 

Had  I  not  already  written  more  than  I  intended 
on  this  subject,  I  might  go  on  with  many  other  evi- 
dences of  the  truth  of  my  view  of  this  remarkable 
character.  I  did  wish  also  to  show  that  Hamlet  was 
a  most  disreputable  character,  and  by  no  means  en- 
titled to  the  sympathy  or  admiration  of  men.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  he  was,  even  to  his  last  hour,  fonder  of 
drink  than  became  a  prince  (except  perhaps  a  Prince 
Regent)— that  he  treated  Ophelia  improperly— that 
he  often  spoke  of  his  step-father  in  profane  terms— 
that  he  indulged  in  the  use  of  profane  language  even 
in  his  soliloquies,  as  for  example,— 

"The  spirit  I  have  seen 
May  be  a  devil ;  and  the  devil  hath  power 
To  assume  a  pleasing  shape ;  yea,  and  perhaps 
Out  of  my  weakness,  and  my  melancholy, 
(As  he  is  very  potent  with  such  spirits) 
Abuses  me  too, — damme!" 

His  familiarity  with  the  players  likewise  is  an  incon- 
trovertible proof  of  his  depravity;  for  the  theatrical 
people  of  Denmark  in  his  age  were  not  what  the 


SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMMENTATORS 

players  of  our  day  are.  They  were  too  often  people 
of  loose  and  reckless  lives,  careless  of  moral  and 
social  obligations,  and  whose  company  would  by  no 
means  be  acceptable  to  a  truly  philosophic  prince. 

If  this  pre-Raphaelite  sketch  of  Hamlet's  char- 
acter should  seem  unsatisfactory,  it  can  be  filled  out 
by  a  perusal  of  the  play  itself,  if  the  reader  will  only 
cast  aside  the  trammels  which  the  commentators 
have  placed  in  his  way.  It  may  be  a  new  view  to  most 
of  my  readers;  but  I  am  convinced  that  the  theory, 
of  which  I  have  given  an  outline,  is  fully  as  tenable 
as  many  of  the  countless  conjectural  essays  to  which 
that  matchless  drama  has  given  rise.  If  it  be  untrue, 
why,  then  we  must  conclude  that  all  similar  theories, 
though  they  may  be  sustained  by  as  many  passages  as 
I  have  adduced  in  support  of  my  Hibernico-sartorial 
hypothesis,  are  equally  devoid  of  a  foundation  of 
common  sense.  If  my  theory  stands,  I  have  the  satis- 
faction of  having  connected  my  name  (which  would 
else  be  soon  forgotten)  with  one  of  Shakespeare's 
masterpieces;  and  that  is  all  that  any  commentator 
has  ever  done.  And  if  my  theory  proves  false,  it 
consoles  me  to  think  that  the  splendour  of  the  genius 
which  I  so  highly  reverence  is  in  no  wise  obscured 
thereby;  for  the  stability  and  grandeur  of  the  temple 
cannot  be  impaired  by  the  obliteration  of  the  ambi- 
tious scribblings  and  chalk-marks  with  which  some 
aspiring  worshippers  may  have  defaced  its  portico. 


£329] 


MEMORIALS  OF  MRS. 
GRUNDY 

OF  all  the  studies  to  which  I  was  ever  impelled  in 
my  youth,  either  by  fear  of  the  birch  or  by  the 
hope  of  the  laurel  or  the  bays,  mythology  was  per- 
haps the  most  charming.  It  was  refreshing,  after 
trying  in  vain  to  conjugate  a  verb,  and  being  at  last 
obliged  to  decline  it — after  adding  up  a  column  of 
figures  several  times,  and  getting  many  different  re- 
sults, and  none  of  them  the  right  one — and  after 
making  a  vain  attempt  to  comprehend  the  only  al- 
gebraic knowledge  that  ever  was  forced  into  my 
unmathematical  brain,  viz.,  that  x  equals  an  unknown 
quantity,— it  was,  I  say,  refreshing  to  turn  over  the 
leaves  of  my  Classical  Dictionary,  and  revel  among 
the  gods  and  heroes  whose  wondrous  careers  were 
embalmed  in  its  well-thumbed  pages.  Lempriere 
was  the  great  magician  who  summoned  up  before 
my  delighted  eyes  the  denizens  of  a  sphere  where 
existence  was  unvexed  by  any  pestilent  arithmetics, 
and  where  the  slavery  of  the  inky  desk  was  unknown. 
It  always  seemed  to  me  as  if  the  knowledge  that  I 
gained  out  of  those  enchanted  chronicles  not  only 
improved  my  mind,  but  made  my  body  more  robust; 
for  I  joined  in  the  chase,  fought  desperate  battles,  as 
the  gods  willed  it,  and  breathed  all  the  while  the 
pure,  invigorating  air  of  old  Olympus.  The  con- 

£330] 


MEMORIALS  OF  MRS.  GRUNDY 

secrated  groves  were  the  dwelling-place  of  my  mind, 
and  I  became  for  a  time  a  sharer  in  the  joys  of  beings 
in  whom  I  believed  with  all  the  ardour  and  sim- 
plicity of  childhood.  I  enjoyed  my  mythological 
readings  all  the  more  because  they  did  not  generally 
find  favour  with  my  school  companions,  most  of 
whom  vindicated  their  nationality  by  professing 
their  affection  for  the  Rule  of  Three.  One  of  them, 
I  remember,  was  especially  severe  on  the  uselessness 
of  the  studies  in  which  I  took  pleasure.  He,  parcus 
deorum  cultor,  etinfrequens,  could  get  no  satisfaction 
out  of  the  books  in  which  I  revelled;  if  he  had  got  to 
study  or  read,  he  could  not  afford  to  waste  his  brains 
over  the  foolish  superstitions  of  three  thousand  years 
ago.  He  did  not  care  how  much  romance  and  poetic 
beauty  there  might  be  in  the  ancient  mythology: 
what  did  it  all  come  to  in  the  end?  It  didn't  pay. 
It  was  a  humbug.  Our  paths  in  life  separated  when 
we  graduated  from  jackets  and  peg-tops.  He  re- 
mained faithful  to  his  boyish  instincts,  and  pursued 
the  practical  as  if  it  were  a  reality.  After  a  few 
years  his  face  lost  all  its  youthful  look;  an  intense 
spirit  of  acquisitiveness  gleamed  in  his  calculating 
eye,  and  an  interest  table  seemed  to  be  written  in  the 
lines  of  his  care-worn  countenance.  We  seldom  had 
any  conversation  in  our  after  years,  for  he  always 
seemed  to  be  under  some  restraint,  as  if  he  feared 
that  I  wished  to  borrow  a  little  money  of  him,  and 
he  did  not  wish  to  refuse  for  the  sake  of  the  old  time 
when  we  sat  at  the  same  desk,  although  he  knew  that 
my  note  was  good  for  nothing.  His  devotion  to  his 
deity,  the  practical,  did  not  go  unrewarded.  He  be- 
came like  the  only  mythological  personage  whom  he 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

would  have  envied,  had  he  known  any  thing  of  the 
science  he  despised.  His  touch  seemed  to  transmute 
every  thing  into  gold.  His  speculations  during  the 
war  of  1812  were  all  successful.  Eastern  lands 
harmed  him  not.  The  financial  panic  of  1837  only 
put  money  in  his  purse.  He  rolled  up  a  large  for- 
tune, and  was  happy.  He  looked  anxious,  but  of 
course  he  was  happy.  What  man  ever  devoted  his 
life  to  the  working  out  of  the  dreams  of  his  youth 
in  the  acquisition  of  riches,  and  succeeded  beyond  his 
anticipations,  without  being  very  happy?  But,  if  his 
gains  were  something  practical  and  real,  his  losses 
were  doubly  so.  Each  one  of  them  was  as  a  dagger 
stuck  into  that  sere  heart.  His  only  son  gave  him 
much  trouble  by  his  wild  life,  and,  what  touched  him 
still  more,  wasted  the  money  he  had  laboured  to  pile 
up,  at  the  gaming  tables  of  Baden.  I  saw  him  walk- 
ing down  Tremont  Street  the  other  day,  looking  care- 
worn and  miserable,  and  I  longed  to  ask  him  what 
he  thought  of  the  real  and  practical  after  trying 
them.  He  would  certainly  have  been  willing  to 
acknowledge  that  there  is  more  reality  in  the  romance 
and  poetry  of  mythology  than  in  the  thousands  which 
he  invested  in  the  Bay  State  Mills.  His  practical  life 
has  brought  him  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit,  while 
the  old  Lempriere,  which  he  used  to  treat  so  con- 
temptuously, flourishes  in  immortal  youth,  unhurt 
amid  the  wreck  of  fortunes  and  the  depreciation  of 
stocks. 

But  I  am  not  writing  an  essay  on  mythology.  I 
wish  to  treat  of  one  who  is  sometimes  considered  a 
myth,  but  who  is  a  living  and  breathing  personality 
like  all  of  us.  This  wide-spread  scepticism  is  one  of 

[3323 


MEMORIALS  OF  MRS.  GRUNDY 

the  most  fatal  signs  of  the  times.  Because  the  late 
Mrs.  Sairey  Gamp  supposed  herself  justified  in  culti- 
vating a  little  domestic  mythology  in  the  shade  of  the 
famous  Mrs.  Harris,  are  we  to  take  all  the  person- 
ages who  have  illustrated  history  as  myths  and 
unrealities?  Shade  of  Herodotus,  forbid  it !  There 
are  some  unbelieving  and  irreverent  enough  to  doubt 
whether  there  is  really  such  a  person  as  Mrs.  Part- 
ington;  other  some  there  are  so  hardened  in  their 
incredulity  as  to  question  the  existence  of  the  indi- 
vidual who  smote  Mr.  William  Patterson,  and  even 
of  the  immortal  recipient  of  the  blow  himself. 
Therefore  we  ought  not  to  think  it  strange  that  the 
lady  whose  name  adorns  the  title  of  this  article 
should  not  have  escaped  the  profane  spirit  of  the 
age. 

Unfortunately  for  us,  Mrs.  Grundy  is  no  myth, 
but  a  terrible  reality.  She  is  a  widow.  The  late  Mr. 
Grundy  bore  it  with  heroic  patience  as  long  as  he 
could,  and  then,  by  a  divine  dispensation  in  which  he 
gladly  acquiesced,  was  relieved  of  the  burden  of  life. 
If  he  be  not  happy  now,  the  great  doctrine  of  com- 
pensation is  nought  but  a  delusion  and  a  sham.  If 
endless  happiness  could  only  be  attained  through 
such  a  purgatory  as  poor  Grundy's  life,  few  of  us, 
I  fear,  would  yearn  to  be  counted  among  the  elect. 
Martyrs,  and  confessors,  and  saints  of  every  degree 
have  won  their  crowns  of  beatitude  with  comparative 
case;  if  they  had  been  subjected  to  a  twenty  years' 
novitiate  with  Mrs.  Grundy  and  her  tireless  tongue, 
they  would  have  found  how  much  more  terrible  that 
was  than  the  laborious  life  or  cruel  death  by  which 
they  passed  from  earth,  and  fewer  bulls  of  canoniza- 

n  33311 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

tion  would  have  received  the  Seal  of  the  Fisherman. 
I  have  heard  from  those  who  were  acquainted  with 
that  estimable  and  uncomplaining  man  that  he  mar- 
ried for  love.  His  wife  was  a  person  of  considerable 
attractions,  of  an  inquiring  turn  of  mind,  and  of 
uncommon  energy  of  character.  In  her  care  of  his 
household  there  was  nothing  of  which  he  might  with 
reason  complain.  She  kept  a  sharp  look-out  over  all 
those  matters  in  which  the  prudent  housewife  de- 
lights to  show  her  skill;  her  table  was  worthy  to  re- 
ceive regal  legs  beneath  its  shining  mahogany  and 
spotless  cloth,  and  I  have  even  heard  that  her  hus- 
band never  had  occasion  to  curse  mentally  over  the 
lack  of  a  shirt-button.  Yet  was  Giles  Grundy, 
Esquire,  one  of  the  most  miserable  of  men.  Of  what 
avail  was  it  to  him  that  his  wife  could  preserve 
quinces,  if  she  could  not  preserve  her  own  peace  of 
mind?  What  did  it  matter  how  well  she  cured  hams, 
if  she  always  failed  so  miserably  in  curing  her 
tongue?  What  profit  was  it  that  her  accounts  with 
her  butcher  and  grocer  were  always  correctly  kept,  if 
her  accounts  of  all  her  neighbours  constantly  over- 
ran and  kept  her  and  her  spouse  in  a  perpetual  state 
of  moral  bankruptcy?  What  difference  did  it  make 
how  well  she  took  care  of  her  own  family,  if  they 
were  to  be  kept  in  an  unending  turmoil  by  her  solici- 
tude concerning  that  of  every  body  else? 

If  you  had  visited  Mrs.  Grundy,  and  remarked 
the  brightness  of  the  door-knocker,  the  stair-rods,  the 
andirons,  and  every  other  part  of  her  premises  that 
was  susceptible  of  polish,  and  the  scrupulous  clean- 
liness that  held  absolute  sway  around  her,  you  would 
have  sworn  that  she  was  gifted  with  the  hundred 


MEMORIALS  OF  MRS.  GRUNDY 

arms  of  Briareus:  if  you  had  listened  for  fifteen 
minutes  to  her  observations  of  men  and  things,  you 
would  have  had  a  conviction  amounting  to  absolute 
certainty  that  she  possessed  the  eyes  of  Argus.  No- 
body ever  doubted  that  she  was  a  most  religious 
person.  She  attended  to  all  her  religious  duties  with 
most  edifying  exactness.  She  was  always  in  her  seat 
at  church,  and  could  tell  you,  to  a  bonnet  ribbon,  the 
dress  of  every  person  who  honoured  the  sacred  edi- 
fice with  his  or  her  presence.  If  you  would  know 
who  of  the  congregation  were  so  lacking  in  fervour 
of  spirit  as  to  neglect  to  bow  in  the  creed,  or  to  com- 
mit the  impropriety  of  nodding  during  the  sermon, 
Mrs.  Grundy  could  give  you  all  the  information  you 
could  wish.  She  carried  out  the  divine  precept  to  the 
letter:  she  watched  as  well  as  prayed.  But  her  re- 
ligion did  not  waste  itself  in  mere  devotional  ecstasy; 
it  took  the  most  attractive  form  of  religion — that  of 
active  benevolence.  And  her  pious  philanthropy  was 
not  of  that  exclusively  telescopic  character  that  looks 
out  for  the  interests  of  the  Cannibal  Islands  and  the 
king  thereof,  and  cannot  understand  that  there  is 
any  spiritual  destitution  nearer  home.  She  sub- 
scribed, it  is  true,  to  support  the  missionaries  with 
their  wives  and  numerous  children,  who  were  de- 
voted to  the  godly  work  of  converting  the  Chinese 
and  the  Juggernauts;  but  she  did  something  also  in 
the  way  of  food  and  flannel  for  the  victims  of  want 
in  her  own  neighbourhood.  She  established  a  sewing 
circle  in  the  parish  where  she  lived,  and  never  ap- 
peared happier  than  when  busily  engaged  with  her 
female  companions  in  their  weekly  task  and  talk.  I 
am  afraid  that  there  was  other  sowing  done  in  that 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

circle  besides  plain  sewing.  The  seeds  of  domestic 
unhappiness  and  strife  were  carried  from  thence  into 
all  parts  of  the  parish.  Reputations  as  well  as  gar- 
ments took  their  turn  among  those  benevolent  ladies, 
and  were  cut  out,  and  fitted,  and  basted,  and  sewed 
up,  and  overcast.  The  sewing  circle  was  Mrs. 
Grundy's  confessional.  Do  not  misapprehend  me — 
I  would  not  asperse  her  character  by  accusing  her  of 
what  are  known  at  the  present  day  as  "Romanizing 
tendencies";  for  she  lived  long  before  the  "scarlet 
fever"  invaded  the  University  of  Oxford  and  carried 
off  its  victims  by  hundreds;  and  nobody  ever  sus- 
pected her  of  any  desire  to  tell  her  own  offences  in 
the  ear  of  any  human  being.  No,  she  detested  the 
Roman  confessional  in  a  becoming  manner;  but  she 
upheld,  by  word  and  example,  that  most  scriptural 
institution,  the  sewing  circle — the  Protestant  confes- 
sional, where  each  one  confesses,  not  her  own  sins, 
but  the  sins  of  her  neighbours.  Mrs.  Grundy's  suc- 
cess with  her  favourite  institution  encouraged  others 
to  emulate  her  example;  and  now  sewing  circles  are 
common  wherever  the  mother  tongue  of  that  benevo- 
lent lady  is  spoken.  It  must  in  justice  be  acknow- 
ledged that  there  are  few  institutions  of  human 
invention  which  have  departed  from  the  spirit  of 
their  original  founder  so  little  as  the  sewing  circle. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  all  her  virtues  as  a  housekeeper,  a 
philanthropist,  and  a  Christian,  Mrs.  Grundy  had 
her  enemies.  Some  people  were  uncharitable  enough 
to  say  that  she  was  the  cause  of  more  trouble  than 
all  the  rest  of  the  female  population  of  the  town. 
They  accused  her  of  setting  herself  up  as  a  censor, 
and  giving  judgments  founded  upon  hearsay  testi- 

C3363 


MEMORIALS  OF  MRS.  GRUNDY 

mony  rather  than  sound  legal  evidence.  They  even 
said  that  she  made  her  visits  among  the  poor  a  cloak 
for  the  gratification  of  her  inquisitiveness;  and,  if  it 
is  ever  pardonable  to  judge  of  the  motives  of  a  fel- 
low-being, I  think  that,  in  consideration  of  their  ex- 
asperation, they  must  be  excused  for  making  so 
unkind  a  charge,  it  seemed  to  be  so  well  founded. 
Far  be  it  from  me  to  say  that  Mrs.  Grundy  ever  wil- 
fully misrepresented.  She  would  have  shrunk  in- 
stinctively from  a  falsehood.  But  she  delighted  to 
draw  inferences;  and  no  fact  or  rumour  ever  came  to 
her  without  being  classified  properly  in  her  mental 
history  of  her  neighbours,  and  being  made  to  shed  its 
full  influence  upon  her  next  conversation.  It  is 
astonishing  how  much  one  pair  of  eyes  and  ears  will 
do  in  the  collection  of  information  when  a  person  is 
devoted  to  it  in  earnest.  In  her  younger  days,  Mrs. 
Grundy  had  taken  pleasure  in  watching  her  neigh- 
bours and  keeping  up  a  running  commentary  on  their 
movements;  as  she  advanced  in  life,  it  became  her 
business.  Her  efforts  in  that  way  were  rather  in  the 
style  of  an  amateur  up  to  the  time  of  her  marriage; 
afterwards  she  adopted  a  professional  air.  She 
placed  herself  at  her  favourite  window,  ornamenting 
its  seat  with  her  spools,  and  though  she  stitched 
away  with  commendable  industry,  nothing  escaped 
her  that  came  within  range  of  her  keen  powers  of 
observation. 

If  Mr.  Brown  called  on  Mrs.  White  over  the 
way,  Mrs.  Grundy  set  it  down  as  a  remarkable  occur- 
rence :  if  he  repeated  his  visit  a  week  later,  she  would 
not  declare  it  positively  scandalous,  but  it  was  evi- 
dent that  her  nicer  sense  of  propriety  was  deeply 

CSS?!] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

wounded:  if  he  passed  by  the  door  without  calling,  it 
was  clear  that  there  had  been  a  falling  out— that 
Mrs.  White  had  seen  the  error  of  her  ways,  or  that 
her  husband  had,  and  had  given  Brown  a  warning. 
If  a  stranger  was  seen  exercising  Jones's  bell-pull  on 
two  consecutive  days,  this  indefatigable  woman  al- 
lowed not  her  eyes  to  sleep  nor  her  eyelids  to  slumber 
until  she  had  satisfied  herself  concerning  his  name 
and  purpose.  If  Mr.  Thompson  waited  upon  pretty 
Miss  Jenkins  home  in  a  shower,  and  treated  her 
kindly  and  politely,  (and  who  could  do  otherwise 
with  a  young  angel  in  blue  and  drab,  who  might 
charm  a  Kaffir  or  a  Sepoy  into  urbanity?)  Mrs. 
Grundy  straightway  instituted  inquiries  among  all 
the  neighbours  as  to  whether  it  was  true  that  they 
were  engaged.  After  this  fashion  did  Mrs.  Grundy 
live.  Her  words  have  been  known  to  blast  a  reputa- 
tion which  under  the  sunshine  of  prosperity  and  the 
storms  of  misfortune  had  sustained  itself  with  equal 
grace  and  honour.  It  was  useless  to  bring  up  proofs 
of  a  life  of  integrity  against  her  sentence  or  her 
knowing  smile.  There  was  no  appeal  from  her 
decision.  Not  that  she  was  uncharitable, — only  it 
did  seem  as  if  she  were  rather  more  willing  to  believe 
evil  of  her  neighbours  than  good;  and  she  appeared 
slow  to  trust  in  the  repentance  of  any  one  who  had 
ever  fallen  into  sin,  especially  if  the  person  were  of 
her  own  sex.  I  am  not  complaining  of  this  peculiar- 
ity; we  must  be  circumspect  and  strict,  and  mercy  is 
a  quality  too  rare  and  divine  to  be  wasted  on  every 
trivial  occasion.  But  I  cannot  help  thinking  that,  if 
the  penitent  found  it  as  hard  to  gain  the  absolving 
smile  of  that  Power  to  which  alone  we  are  answer- 

C338H 


MEMORIALS  OF  MRS.  GRUNDY 

able  for  our  misdeeds  as  to  reinstate  himself  in  the 
good  graces  of  Mrs.  Grundy,  how  few  of  us  could 
have  any  hope  of  the  beatific  vision ! 

Mrs.  Grundy  had  great  influence;  she  was  re- 
spected and  feared.  People  found  that  she  would 
give  her  opinion  ex  cathedra,  and  that,  however  un- 
founded that  opinion  might  be,  there  were  those  who 
would  reecho  it  until  common  repetition  gave  it  the 
force  of  truth;  so  they  tried  to  conciliate  her  by 
graduating  their  actions  according  to  what  they  sup- 
posed would  be  her  judgment.  When  this  was  seen, 
she  began  to  be  envied  by  some  who  had  once  hated 
her,  and  her  idiosyncrasies  were  made  the  study  of 
many  of  her  sex  who  longed  to  share  her  empire 
over  the  thoughts  and  actions  of  their  fellow-crea- 
tures. Thus,  by  a  sort  of  multiplex  metempsychosis, 
were  Mrs.  Grundy's  virtues  perpetuated,  and  she 
was  endowed  with  a  species  of  omnipresence.  In 
this  country  Mrs.  Grundy  is  a  power.  She  is  the 
absolute  sovereign  of  America.  Her  reign  there  is 
none  to  dispute.  Our  national  motto  ought  to  be, 
instead  of  E  pluribus  unum,  "What  will  Mrs.  Grundy 
say?"  There  is  no  class  in  our  community  over 
which  she  does  not  exercise  more  or  less  power.  Our 
politicians,  when  they  cease  to  regard  their  influence 
as  a  commodity  to  be  sold  to  the  highest  bidder,  act, 
not  from  any  fixed  principles,  but  with  a  single  eye  to 
the  good  will  of  Mrs.  Grundy.  If  a  man  is  buying  a 
house,  it  is  ten  chances  to  one  that  Mrs.  Grundy's 
opinion  concerning  gentility  of  situation  will  carry 
the  day  against  cosiness  and  real  comfort.  If  your 
wife  or  daughter  goes  to  buy  a  dress,  Mrs.  Grundy's 
taste  will  be  consulted  in  preference  to  the  durability 

C339] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

of  the  fabric  or  the  condition  of  your  purse.  Mrs. 
Grundy  dictates  to  us  how  we  shall  furnish  our 
houses,  and  prescribes  to  us  our  whole  rule  of  life. 
Under  her  stern  sway,  multitudes  are  living  beyond 
their  means,  and  trying  to  avert  the  bankruptcy  and 
unhappiness  that  inevitably  await  them.  It  is  not 
merely  in  the  management  of  temporal  affairs  that 
Mrs.  Grundy  makes  her  power  felt.  Her  vigilance 
checks  many  a  generous  impulse,  stands  between  the 
resolution  to  do  justice  and  its  execution,  and  is  a 
fruitful  source  of  hypocrisy.  She  presides  over  the 
pulpit;  the  power  of  wardens  and  vestrymen  is  swal- 
lowed up  by  her;  and  the  minister  who  can  dress  up 
his  weekly  dish  of  moral  commonplaces  so  as  not  to 
offend  her  discriminating  taste  deserves  to  retain  his 
place,  and  merits  the  unanimous  admiration  of  the 
whole  sewing  circle.  She  is  to  be  found  in  courts  of 
law,  animating  the  opposing  parties,  and  enjoying 
the  contest;  actions  of  slander  are  an  agreeable  rec- 
reation to  her;  petitions  for  divorce  give  her  un- 
mixed joy.  Like  the  fury,  Alecto,  so  finely  described 
by  Virgil,  Mrs.  Grundy  can  arm  brothers  to  deadly 
strife  against  each  other,  and  stir  up  the  happiest 
homes  with  infernal  hatred;  to  her  belong  a  thou- 
sand woful  arts — Sibi  nomina  mille,  mille  nocendi 
artes.  Mrs.  Grundy's  philanthropy  confines  itself 
to  no  particular  class;  it  is  universal.  Nothing  that 
relates  to  human  kind  is  alien  to  her.  There  is  noth- 
ing earthly  so  high  that  she  does  not  aspire  to  control 
it,  nor  any  thing  too  contemptible  for  her  not  to  wish 
to  know  all  about  it. 

Mrs.  Grundy  is  omnipresent.    Go  where  you  will, 
you  cannot  escape  from  her  presence.     She  stands 

£3403 


MEMORIALS  OF  MRS.  GRUNDY 

guard  unceasingly  over  your  front  door  and  back 
windows.  Her  watchful  eye  follows  you  whene'er 
you  take  your  walks  abroad.  Your  name  is  never 
mentioned  that  she  is  not  by,  and  seriously  inclined 
to  hear  aught  that  may  increase  her  baleful  stock  of 
knowledge.  It  is  all  the  same  to  her  whether  you 
have  lived  uprightly  or  viciously;  beneath  her  Gor- 
gon glance  all  human  actions  are  petrified  alike.  And 
if  she  does  not  succeed  in  sowing  discord  around  your 
hearthstone,  and  in  driving  you  to  despair  and  self- 
murder,  as  she  did  poor  Henry  Herbert  the  other 
day,  it  will  be  because  you  are  not  cursed  with  his 
fiery  sensitiveness,  and  not  because  she  lacks  the  will 
to  do  it. 

There  is  but  one  way  in  which  the  Grundian  yoke 
can  be  thrown  off.  We  must  treat  her  as  the  English 
wit  treated  an  insignificant  person  who  had  insulted 
him;  we  must  "let  her  alone  severely."  We  pay  a 
certain  kind  of  allegiance  to  her  if  we  take  notice  of 
her  for  the  purpose  of  running  counter  to  her  no- 
tions. We  must  ignore  her  altogether.  It  is  true, 
this  requires  a  great  deal  of  moral  courage,  particu- 
larly in  a  country  where  every  body  knows  every 
body  else's  business ;  but  it  is  an  easier  task  to  acquire 
that  courage  than  to  submit  patiently  to  Mrs. 
Grundy's  dictation  and  interference.  Who  shall 
estimate  the  happiness  of  that  millennial  period 
when  we  shall  cease  to  ask  ourselves  before  our 
every  action,  "What  will  Mrs.  Grundy  say?"  and 
shall  begin  in  earnest  to  live  up  to  the  golden  rule 
that  counsels  us  to  mind  our  own  business?  When 
that  day  comes,  what  a  world  this  will  be!  How 
will  superficial  morality  and  skin-deep  propriety, 

C34I3 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

envy  and  uncharitableness,  be  diminished!  How 
will  contentment,  and  mutual  good  will,  and  domes- 
tic peace  be  augmented!  Think  on  these  things,  O 
beloved  reader;  mind  your  own  business,  and  the  day 
is  not  far  distant  when,  for  you  at  least,  the  iron 
sceptre  of  Dame  Grundy  shall  be  powerless,  and  the 
spell  broken  that  held  you  in  so  humiliating  a  thral- 
dom. 


C3423 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE 

E"E  is  what  we  make  it.    The  same  scenes  wear 
a  very  different  appearance  to  an  ingenuous 
youth  "in  the  bright  morning  of  his  virtues,  in  the 
full  spring  blossom  of  his  hopes,"  and  to  the  disap- 
pointed wretch  who  gazes  on  them  "with  the  eyes  of 
sour  misanthropy."     The  horse  that  was  turned  by 
his  benevolent  owner  into  a  carpenter's  shop,  with  a 
pair  of  green  spectacles  prefixed  to  his  nose,  and 
mistook  the  dry  pine  shavings   for  his  legitimate 
fodder,  was  very  much  in  the  condition  of  a  youth 
looking  upon  life  and  yielding  to  the  natural  enthu- 
siasm of  his  unwarped  spirit.    Like  the  noble  brute, 
however,  the  young  man  is  undeceived  as  soon  as  he 
tries  to  sustain  himself  with  the  vanities  which  look 
so  tempting  and  nutritious.    He  may,  like  a  Wolsey, 
a  Charles  V.,  or  a  Napoleon,  attain  to  the  heights  of 
power  before  the  delusive  glasses  drop  off;  but  even 
though  the  moment  be  delayed  until  he  lies  gasping 
in  the  clutch  of  that  monarch  to  whom  the  most  ab- 
solute of  sovereigns  and  the  most  radical  of  repub- 
licans alike  must  yield  allegiance,  it  is  sure  to  come, 
and  show  him  the  ashes  that  lay  hid  beneath  the  fair, 
ripe-looking  rind  of  the  fruit  he  climbed  so  high  to 
obtain.    Life  passes  before  us  like  a  vast  panorama, 
day  by  day  and  year  by  year  unrolling  and  disclosing 
new  scenes  to  charm  us  into  self-forgetfulness.     At 
one  time,  we  breathe  the  bracing  air  of  the  moun- 

C3433 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

tains;  at  another,  our  eyes  are  gladdened  by  the  sight 
of  sunshiny  meadows,  or  of  fertile  and  far-reaching 
prairies;  and  then  the  towered  city,  with  its  grove  of 
masts  and  its  busy  wharves,  makes  all  mere  natural 
beauty  seem  insignificant  in  comparison  with  the 
enterprise  and  ambition  of  man;  until,  at  last,  the 
canvas  is  rolled  away,  the  music  ceases,  the  lights  are 
put  out,  and  we  are  left  to  realize  that  all  in  which 
we  delighted  was  but  an  illusion  and  a  "fleeting 
show." 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  the  vanities  that  sur- 
round us, — in  spite  of  the  sublime  world-sickness  of 
Solomon  and  the  Preacher,  and  the  fierce  satire  of 
Juvenal,  (who  was  as  anxious  to  ascertain  the  precise 
weight  of  Hannibal  as  if  that  illustrious  dux  had 
been  a  prize-fighter,)— there  is  considerable  reality 
in  life.  The  existence  of  so  much  sham  and  make- 
believe  implies  the  existence  of  the  real  and  true.  Sir 
Thomas  Browne  tells  us  that  "in  seventy  or  eighty 
years  a  man  may  have  a  deep  gust  of  the  world"; 
and  it  were  indeed  melancholy  if  any  one  with  hair 
as  gray  as  mine  should  look  despairingly  over  the 
field  of  human  existence  and  effort,  and  cry,  "All  is 
barren." 

Life,  as  I  have  before  said,  is  whatever  we  choose 
to  make  it.  Its  true  philosophy  is  that  divine  art 
which  enables  us  to  transmute  its  every  moment  into 
the  pure  gold  of  heroic  and  changeless  immortality. 
Without  that  philosophy,  it  is  impossible  for  the 
world  not  to  seem  at  times  as  it  did  to  the  desponding 
Danish  prince,  "a  sterile  promontory,"  and  a  "foul 
and  pestilent  congregation  of  vapours."  Without  it, 
life  is  like  an  elaborate  piece  of  embroidery,  looked 

C3443 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE 

at  from  the  wrong  side ;  we  cannot  but  acknowledge 
the  brilliancy  of  some  of  its  threads,  and  the  delicate 
texture  of  the  work,  but  its  lack  of  system,  and  of 
any  appearance  of  utility,  fatigues  the  mind  that 
hungers  after  perfection,  and  tempts  it  to  doubt  the 
divine  wisdom  and  goodness  from  which  it  origi- 
nated. With  it,  however,  we  gaze  with  admiration 
and  awe  upon  the  front  of  the  same  marvellous  work. 
Our  sense  is  no  longer  puzzled  by  any  straggling 
threads,  or  loose  ends ;  the  exquisite  colours,  the  con- 
trast of  light  and  shade,  and  the  perfect  symmetry 
and  harmony  of  the  design,  fill  the  heart  of  the  be- 
holder with  wonder  and  delight,  and  draw  him 
nearer  to  the  source  of  those  ineffable  perfections 
which  are  but  imperfectly  symbolized  in  the  marvels 
of  the  visible  universe. 

The  philosophy  which  can  do  all  this  is  sincerity. 
"I  think  sincerity  is  better  than  grace,"  says  Mr.  T. 
Carlyle;  and  the  Scotch  savage  is  right.  All  the 
amenities  of  life  that  spring  from  any  other  source 
than  a  true  heart,  are  but  gratuitous  hypocrisy.  The 
kind-hearted  knight  whom  I  have  already  quoted 
showed  how  highly  he  esteemed  this  virtue  when  he 
said,  "Swim  smoothly  in  the  stream  of  nature,  and 
live  but  one  man."  This  double  existence,  that  most 
of  us  support, — that  is,  what  we  really  are,  and  what 
we  wish  to  be  considered, — is  the  source  of  many  of 
our  faults,  and  most  of  our  vexation  and  wretched- 
ness. He  is  the  truly  happy  man  who  forgets  that 
"appearances  must  be  kept  up,"  and  remembers  only 
that  "each  of  us  is  as  great  as  he  appears  in  the  sight 
of  his  Creator,  and  no  greater."  A  great  French 
philosopher  has  truly  said,  "How  many  controver- 

£3453 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

sies  would  be  terminated,  if  the  disputants  were  ob- 
liged to  speak  out  exactly  what  they  thought !"  And 
surely  he  might  have  gone  farther  in  the  same  line  of 
thought;  for  how  much  heartburning,  domestic  un- 
happiness,  dishonesty,  and  shameful  poverty  might 
be  prevented,  if  my  neighbour  Jinkins  and  his  wife 
were  content  to  pass  in  the  world  for  what  they  are, 
instead  of  assuming  a  princely  style  of  living  that 
only  makes  their  want  of  true  refinement  more  ap- 
parent, and  if  Johnson  and  his  wife  could  be  induced 
not  to  imitate  the  vulgar  follies  of  the  Jinkinses! 
Believe  me,  incredulous  reader,  there  is  more  wisdom 
in  old  Sir  Thomas's  exhortation  to  "live  but  one 
man"  than  appears  at  first  sight. 

But  to  leave  this  great  primary  virtue,  which  pol- 
icy teaches  most  men  to  practise,  though  they  love  it 
not, — there  are  two  or  three  principles  of  action 
which  I  have  found  very  useful  in  my  career,  and 
which  form  a  part  of  my  philosophy  of  life.  The 
first  is,  never  to  anticipate  troubles.  Many  years 
ago,  I  was  travelling  in  a  part  of  our  common  coun- 
try not  very  thickly  settled,  and,  coming  to  a  place 
where  two  roads  met,  I  applied,  in  my  doubt  as  to 
which  one  I  ought  to  take,  to  an  old  fellow  (with  a 
pair  of  shoulders  like  those  of  Hercules,  and  a  face 
on  which  half  a  century  of  sunshine,  and  storm,  and 
toddies  had  made  an  indelible  record)  who  was  re- 
pairing a  rickety  fence  by  the  wayside.  He  scanned 
me  with  a  look  that  seemed  to  take  in  not  only  my 
personal  appearance,  but  the  genealogy  of  my  brave 
ancestor,  who  might  have  fallen  in  a  duel  if  he  hadl 
not  learned  how  "to  distinguish  between  the  man  and 
the  act,"  and  then  directed  me  to  turn  to  the  left,  as 

C346U 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE 

that  road  saved  some  three  or  four  miles  of  the  dis- 
tance to  the  farm-house  to  which  I  was  journeying. 
As  it  was  spring-time,  I  manifested  some  anxiety  to 
know  whether  the  freshets,  which  had  been  having 
quite  a  run  of  business  in  some  parts  of  the  country, 
had  done  any  damage  to  a  bridge  which  I  knew  1 
must  cross  if  I  took  the  shorter  road.  He  sneered  at 
my  forethought,  and  said  he  supposed  that  the  bridge 
was  all  right,  and  that  I  had  better  "go  ahead,  and 
see."  I  was  acting  upon  his  advice,  when  a  shout  from 
his  hoarse,  nasal  voice  caused  me  to  look  back.  "I 
say,  young  man,"  he  bawled  out  to  me,  "never  cross 
a  bridge  till  you  come  to  it!"  There  was  wisdom  in 
the  old  man's  rough-spoken  sentence — "solid  chunks 
of  wisdom,"  as  Captain  Ed'ard  Cuttle  would  fain 
express  it— and  it  sank  deep  into  my  memory.  There 
are  very  few  of  us  who  have  not  a  strong  propensity 
to  diminish  our  present  strength  by  entertaining 
fears  of  future  weakness.  If  we  could  content  our- 
selves to  "act  in  the  living  present," — if  we  could 
keep  these  telescopic  evils  out  of  sight,  and  use  all 
our  energies  in  grappling  with  the  difficulties  that 
actually  beset  our  path, — how  much  more  we  should 
achieve,  and  how  greatly  would  our  sum  of  happiness 
be  increased! 

Another  most  salutary  principle  in  my  philosophy 
is,  never  to  allow  myself  to  be  frightened  until  I  have 
examined  and  fairly  established  the  necessity  of  such 
a  humiliation.  I  adopted  this  principle  in  my  child- 
hood, being  led  to  it  in  the  following  manner:  I  was 
visiting  my  grandfather,  who  lived  in  a  fine  old  man- 
sion-house in  the  country,  with  high  wainscotings, 
capacious  fireplaces,  heavy  beams  in  the  ceilings,  and 

C347H 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

wide-arching  elms  overshadowing  the  snug  porch 
where  two  or  three  generations  had  made  love. 
Sixty  years  and  more  have  elapsed  since  that  happy 
time,  yet  it  seems  fresher  in  my  memory  than  the 
events  of  only  quarter  of  a  century  back.  My  grand- 
father was  a  lover  of  books,  and  possessed  a  good 
deal  of  general  information.  He  thought  it  as  ad- 
visable to  keep  up  with  the  history  of  his  own  times 
as  to  be  skilled  in  that  of  empires  long  since  passed 
away.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that  he  should 
have  treasured  every  newspaper — especially  every 
foreign  journal— that  he  could  lay  his  hands  upon. 
It  was  under  his  auspices  that  I  first  read  the  dread- 
ful story  of  the  Reign  of  Terror,  and  acquired  my 
anti-revolutionary  principles. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  bright  autumnal  afternoon 
when  the  mail  coach  from  Boston  brought  a  package 
of  books  and  papers  to  my  grandfather.  It  was  the 
last  friendly  favour,  in  fact  the  last  communication, 
that  he  ever  received  from  his  old  Tory  friend,  Mr. 
Barmesyde,  whom  I  mentioned  with  respect  in  a 
former  essay;  for  that  genial  old  gentleman  died  in 
London  not  long  after.  The  parcel  had  made  a 
quick  transit  for  those  days,  Mr.  Barmesyde's  letter 
being  dated  only  forty-six  days  before  it  was  opened 
by  my  grandsire,  and  we  enjoyed  the  strong  fra- 
grance of  its  uncut  contents  together.  The  old  gentle- 
man seized  upon  a  copy  of  Burke's  splendid  Essay 
on  the  French  Revolution,  which  the  package  con- 
tained, and  left  me  to  revel  in  the  newspapers,  which 
were  full  of  the  dreadful  details  of  that  bloody 
Saturnalia.  I  got  leave  from  my  grandfather  (who 
was  so  deep  in  Burke  that  he  answered  me  at  ran- 

£348] 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE 

dom)  to  sit  up  an  hour  later  than  usual.  Terrible  as 
all  the  things  of  which  I  read  seemed  to  my  young 
mind,  there  was  a  fascination  about  the  details  of 
that  sanguinary  orgie  that  completely  enchanted  me. 
My  imagination  was  full  of  horrible  shapes  when  I 
was  obliged  to  leave  the  warm,  cheerful  parlour,  and 
Robespierre,  Danton,  and  Marat  were  the  infernal 
chamberlains  that  attended  me  as  I  went  up  the 
broad,  creaking  staircase  unwillingly  to  bed.  A  fresh 
north-west  breeze  was  blowing  outside,  and  the  sere 
woodbines  and  honeysuckles  that  filled  the  house 
with  fragrance,  and  gave  it  such  a  rural  look  in  sum- 
mer, startled  me  with  their  struggles  to  escape  from 
bondage.  Had  it  been  spring,  my  young  imagination 
was  so  excited  that  I  should  have  feared  that  they 
might  imitate  the  insurgents  of  whom  I  had  been 
reading  and  begin  to  shoot !  In  the  night  my  troubled 
slumbers  were  disturbed  by  a  noise  that  seemed  to 
me  louder  than  the  discharge  of  a  heavy  cannon.  I 
sat  up  in  the  high,  old-fashioned  bed,  and  glared 
around  the  room,  which  was  somewhat  lighted  by  the 
beams  of  the  setting  moon.  There  was  no  mistake 
about  my  personal  identity — I  was  neither  royalist 
nor  jacobin ;  there  was  no  doubt  that  I  was  in  the  best 
"spare  chamber"  of  my  grandfather's  house,  and 
not  in  the  Bastile,  and  that  the  dark-looking  thing  in 
the  corner  was  a  solid  mahogany  chest  of  drawers, 
and  not  a  guillotine ;  but  all  these  things  only  served 
to  increase  my  terror  when  I  noticed  a  dark  form 
standing  near  the  foot  of  the  bed  and  staring  at  me 
with  pale,  fiery  eyes.  I  rubbed  my  own  eyes  hard, 
and  pinched  myself  severely,  to  make  sure  that  I  was 
awake.  The  room  was  as  still  as  the  great  chamber 

D49I1 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

in  the  pyramid  of  Cheops.  I  could  hear  the  old  clock 
tick  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  as  plainly  as  if  I  had 
been  shut  up  in  its  capacious  case.  In  the  midst  of 
my  perturbation  it  made  every  fibre  of  my  frame 
tremble  by  striking  one  with  a  solemn  clangour  that 
I  thought  must  have  waked  every  sleeper  in  the 
house.  The  stillness  that  followed  was  deeper  and 
more  terrifying  than  before.  I  heard  distinctly  the 
breathing  of  the  monster  at  the  foot  of  the  bed.  I 
tried  to  whistle  at  the  immovable  shape,  but  I  had 
lost  the  power  to  pucker.  At  last,  I  formed  a  des- 
perate resolution.  I  knew  that,  if  the  being  whose 
big,  fierce  eyes  filled  me  with  terror  were  a  genuine 
supernatural  fiend,  it  was  all  over  with  me,  and  I 
might  as  well  give  up  at  once.  But,  if  perchance  a 
human  form  were  hid  beneath  that  dreadful  disguise, 
there  was  some  room  for  hope  of  ultimate  escape. 
To  settle  this  point,  therefore,  became  necessary  to 
my  peace  of  mind,  and  I  determined  that  it  should 
be  done.  Bending  up  "each  corporal  agent  to  the 
terrible  feat,"  I  slid  quietly  out  of  bed.  The  monster 
was  as  motionless  as  before,  but  I  noticed  that  his 
head  was  covered  with  a  white  cloth,  which  made  his 
head  seem  ghastlier  than  ever.  Setting  my  teeth 
firmly  together,  and  clinching  my  little  fists  to  per- 
suade myself  that  I  was  not  afraid,  I  made  the  last, 
decisive  effort.  I  walked  across  the  room,  and  stood 
face  to  face  with  that  formidable  shape.  My  grand- 
father's best  coat  hung  there  against  the  wall,  its 
velvet  collar  protected  from  the  dust  by  a  white 
cloth,  and  the  two  gilt  buttons  on  its  back  glittering 
in  the  moonlight.  This  was  the  tremendous  presence 

C350I] 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE 

that  had  appalled  me.    The  weakness  in  the  knees, 
the  chattering  of  my  teeth,  and  the  profuse  perspira- 
tion which  followed  my  recognition  of  that  harmless 
garment,  bore  witness  to  the  severity  of  my  fright. 
Before  I  crawled  back  into  the  warm  bed,  I  resolved 
never  in  future  to  yield  to  fear,  until  I  had  ascer- 
tained that  there  was  no  escape  from  it;  and  I  have 
had  many  occasions  since  to  act  upon  that  principle. 
Speaking  of  fear,  a  friend  of  mine  has  a  favourite 
maxim,  "Always  do  what  you  are  afraid  to  do;"  to 
which   (in  a  limited  sense,  so  far  as  it  relates  to 
bodily  fear)   I  subscribed  even  in  my  boyhood.     I 
was    returning    one    evening   to    my    grandfather's 
house,  during  one  of  my  vacation  visits,  and  yielded 
to  the  base  sentiment  of  timidity  so  far  as  to  choose 
the  long  way  thither  by  the  open  road,  rather  than  to 
take  the  short  cut,  through  the  graveyard  and  a  little 
piece  of  woodland,  which  was  the  ordinary  path  in 
the  daytime.    I  pursued  my  way,  thinking  of  what  I 
had  done,  until  I  got  within  sight  of  the  old  mansion 
and  its  guardian  elms,  when  shame  for  my  own  cow- 
ardice compelled  me  to  retrace  my  steps  a  quarter  of 
a  mile  or  more,  and  take  the  pathway  I  had  so  fool- 
ishly dreaded.    The  victory  then  achieved  has  lasted 
to  this  hour.  Dead  people  and  their  habitations  have 
not  affrighted  me  since;  indeed,  some  grave  men 
whom  I  have  met  have  excited  my  mirth  rather  than 
my  fears. 

But  overcome  our  fears  and  our  propensity  to 
borrow  trouble,  as  we  may,— in  spite  of  all  our 
philosophy,  life  is  a  severe  task.  I  have  heard  of  a 
worthy  Connecticut  parson  of  the  old  school,  who 

L350 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

enlarged  upon  the  goodness  of  that  Providence 
which  dealt  out  time  to  a  man,  divided  into  minutes, 
and  hours,  and  days,  and  months,  and  years,  instead 
of  giving  it  to  him,  as  it  were,  in  a  lump,  or  in  so 
large  a  quantity  that  he  could  not  conveniently  use  it  I 
Laugh  as  much  as  you  please,  gentle  reader,  at  the 
seeming  absurdity  of  the  venerable  divine,  but  do  not 
neglect  the  great  truth  which  inspired  his  thought. 
Do  not  forget  what  a  great  mercy  it  is  that  we  are 
obliged  to  live  but  one  day  at  a  time.  Do  not  over- 
look the  loving  kindness  which  softens  the  memory 
of  past  sorrows,  and  conceals  from  us  those  which 
are  to  come.  I  have  no  respect  for  that  newest 
heresy  of  our  age,  which  pretends  to  read  the  secrets 
of  the  unseen  world,  nor  any  sympathy  with  those 
morbid  minds  that  yearn  to  tear  away  the  veil  which 
infinite  wisdom  and  mercy  hangs  between  us  and  the 
future.  With  all  our  boasted  learning  we  know  little 
enough;  but  that  little  is  far  too  much  for  our  happi- 
ness. How  many  of  our  trials  and  afflictions  could 
we  have  borne,  if  we  had  been  able  to  foresee  their 
full  extent  and  to  anticipate  their  combined  poig- 
nancy? Truly  we  might  say  with  Shakespeare, — 

"O,  if  this  were  seen, 

The  happiest  youth— viewing  his  progress  through, 
What  perils  past,  what  crosses  to  ensue — 
Would  shut  the  book,  and  sit  him  down  and  die." 

He  only  is  the  true  philosopher  who  uses  life  as 
the  usurer  does  his  gold,  and  employs  each  shining 
hour  so  as  to  insure  an  ever-increasing  rate  of  inter- 
est. He  does  not  bury  his  gift,  nor  waste  it  in  fri- 
volity. Like  the  old  Doge  of  Venice,  he  grows  old 

[3523 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  LIFE 

but  does  not  wear  out :  Senescit,  non  segnesclt.  And 
he  truly  lives  twice,  as  an  old  classical  poet  expresses 
it,  inasmuch  as  he  renews  his  enjoyment  of  the  past 
in  the  recollection  of  his  good  actions  and  of  pleas- 
ures "such  as  leave  no  sting  behind." 


C3533 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES 

THERE  is  no  pleasure  so  satisfactory  as  that 
which  an  old  man  feels  in  recalling  the  happi- 
ness of  his  youthful  days.  All  the  woes,  and  anxieties, 
and  heart-burnings  that  disturbed  him  then  have 
passed  away,  and  left  only  sunshine  in  his  memory. 
And  this  retrospective  enjoyment  increases  with 
every  repeated  recital,  until  the  scenes  of  his  past 
history  assume  a  magnificence  of  proportion  that  be- 
wilders the  narrator  himself,  and  sets  the  principles 
of  optics  entirely  at  defiance.  It  is  with  old  men 
looking  back  on  their  younger  days  very  much  as  it 
is  with  people  who  have  travelled  in  Italy.  How  do 
the  latter  glow  with  enthusiasm  at  the  mere  mention 
of  the  "land  of  the  melting  lyre  and  conquering 
spear" !  How  do  their  eyes  glisten  as  they  tell  of  the 
time  when  they  mused  among  the  broken  columns  of 
the  Forum,  or  breathed  the  air  of  ancient  consecra- 
tion under  the  majestic  vaults  of  the  old  basilicas,  or 
walked  along  the  shores  of  the  world's  most  beauti- 
ful bay,  and  watched  the  black  form  of  Vesuvius 
striving  in  vain  to  tarnish  with  its  foul  breath  the 
blue  canopy  above  it!  They  have  forgotten  their 
squabbles  with  the  vetturini,  the  draughtless  chim- 
neys in  their  lodgings,  and  the  dirty  staircase  that 
conducted  to  them;  the  fleas,  with  all  the  other  dis- 
agreeable accompaniments  of  Italian  life,  have  fled 
into  oblivion;  and  Italy  lives  in  their  memories  only 

C3543 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES 

as  a  land  of  gorgeous  sunsets,  and  of  a  history  that 
dwarfs  all  other  human  annals.  And  so  it  is  with  an 
old  man  looking  back  upon  his  youth:  he  forgets 
how  he  cried  over  his  arithmetic  lessons ;  how  unfilial 
his  feelings  were  when  his  governor  refused  him  per- 
mission to  set  up  a  theatre  in  the  cellar;  how  sheep- 
ishly he  slunk  through  all  the  back  alleys  on  the  day 
when  he  first  mounted  a  tail-coat  and  a  hat;  how 
unhappy  he  was  when  he  saw  his  heart's  idol,  Mary 
Smith,  walking  home  from  school  with  his  implacable 
foe,  Brown;  how  his  head  used  to  ache  after  those 
nodes  casnaque  deum  with  his  club  at  the  old  Ex- 
change Coffee  House;  and  what  a  void  was  created 
in  his  heart  when  his  crony  of  cronies  was  ordered  off 
by  a  commission  from  the  war  department.  There 
is  no  room  in  his  crowded  memory  for  such  things  as 
these.  Sitting  by  his  fireside,  as  I  do  now,  he  recalls 
his  youth  only  as  a  season  of  bats  and  balls,  and 
marbles,  of  sleds,  and  skates,  and  bright  buttons,  and 
clean  ruffled  collars,  of  Christmas  cornucopias  of 
hosiery,  and  no  end  of  Artillery  Elections  and 
Fourths  of  July,  with  coppers  enough  to  secure  the 
potentiality  of  obtaining  egg-pop  to  an  alarming  ex- 
tent. 

How  he  fires  up  if  you  mention  the  theatre  to  him ! 
He  will  allow  that  Mr.  Gilbert  and  Mr.  Warren  are 
most  excellent  in  their  way;  but  bless  your  simple 
heart,  what  is  the  stage  now  compared  to  what  it 
was  in  the  first  part  of  this  century?  And  he  is  about 
right.  It  is  useless  for  us,  who  remember  the  old 
Federal  Street  playhouse,  and  the  triumphs  of  Cooke 
and  the  great  Kean,  to  try  to  go  to  the  theatre  now. 
Our  new  theatre  is  more  stately  and  splendid  than 

£35511 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

Old  Drury  was,  but  our  players  do  not  reach  my 
youthful  standard.  I  miss  those  old  familiar  faces 
and  voices  that  delighted 'me  in  times  long  past,  and 
the  stage  has  lost  most  of  its  charms.  I  can  find  my 
best  theatrical  entertainment  here  at  home.  I  call 
up  from  among  the  shadows  that  the  flickering  fire- 
light casts  upon  the  wall,  the  tall,  knightly  figure  of 
Duff,  the  brisk,  busy,  scolding  Mrs.  Barnes,  the 
sedate  and  judicious  Dickson,  the  grotesque  Finn, 
the  stately  and  elegant  Mrs.  Powell,  looking  like  the 
personification  of  tragedy,  and  bluff  old  Kilner,  fat 
and  pleasant  to  the  sight,  and  with  that  hearty  laugh 
that  made  all  who  heard  it  love  him. 

What  is  the  excitement  occasioned  by  the  Ellsler 
or  Miss  Lind  compared  to  that  which  attended  the 
advent  of  the  elder  Kean?  What  crowds  used  to 
beset  the  box  office  in  the  ten-footer  next  to  the  the- 
atre, from  the  earliest  dawn  until  the  opening!  I 
often  think,  when  I  meet  some  of  our  gravest  and 
grayest  citizens  in  their  daily  walks,  what  a  figure 
they  cut  now  compared  with  the  days  when  they 
were  fighting  their  way  into  the  box  office  of  the  old 
theatre !  Talk  of  enthusiasm !  What  are  all  our 
political  campaigns  and  public  commemorations 
compared  with  that  evening  during  the  last  war  with 
Great  Britain,  when  Commodore  Bainbridge  came 
into  Boston  Bay  after  his  victory  over  the  Java ! 
That  admirable  actor,  the  late  Mr.  Cooper,  was 
playing  Macbeth,  and  interrupted  his  performance 
to  announce  the  victory. 

But,  pardon  me,  I  did  not  sit  down  here  to  lose 
myself  in  the  reminiscences  of  half  a  century  ago. 
Let  me  try  to  govern  this  truant  pen,  and  keep  it 

C356U 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES 

more  closely  to  my  chosen  theme.  Do  you  remem- 
ber, beloved  reader,  your  second  visit  to  the  theatre? 
If  you  do,  cherish  it;  let  it  not  depart  from  you,  for 
in  the  days  that  are  in  store  for  you,  when  age  and 
infirmity  shall  stand  guard  over  you,  and  you  are 
obliged  to  find  all  your  pleasures  by  your  fireside,  the 
memory  of  your  second  play  will  be  very  precious  to 
you.  You  will  find,  on  looking  back  to  it  through  a 
vista  of  sixty  years  or  more,  that  all  the  pleasure  you 
then  enjoyed  was  placed  on  the  credit  side  of  your 
account,  and  has  been  increasing  by  a  sort  of  moral 
compound  interest  during  the  long  years  that  you 
have  devoted  to  delights  less  innocent,  perhaps,  and 
certainly  less  satisfactory,  or  to  the  pursuit  of  ob- 
jects far  more  fleeting  and  unreal  than  those  which 
then  fascinated  your  youthful  mind.  I  say  your 
"second  play,"  for  the  first  dramatic  performance 
that  the  child  witnesses  is  too  astonishing  to  afford 
him  its  full  measure  of  gratification.  It  is  only  after 
he  has  told  his  playmates  all  about  it,  and  imitated 
the  wonderful  hero  who  rescued  the  beautiful  lady 
in  white  satin,  and  dreamed  of  the  splendour  of  the 
last  great  scene,  when  all  the  persons  of  the  drama 
stood  in  a  semicircle,  and  the  king,  with  a  crown  of 
solid  gold  upon  his  head,  addressed  to  the  magnani- 
mous hero  the  thrilling  words, — 

"It  is  enough:  the  princess  is  thine  own!"  — 

and  all  the  characters  struck  impressive  attitudes, 
and  the  curtain  descended  upon  a  tableau  lighted  up 
by  coloured  fires  of  ineffable  brilliancy, — it  is  only 
after  all  these  things  have  sunk  deep  into  the  young 
mind,  and  he  has  resolved  to  write  a  play  himself, 

C3573 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

and  never  to  rest  satisfied  until  he  can  bring  down  the 
house  with  the  best  of  the  actors  he  has  seen,  that 
he  fully  appreciates  the  entertainment  which  has 
been  vouchsafed  to  him. 

What  a  charm  invests  the  place  where  we  made 
our  first  acquaintance  with  the  drama !  It  becomes 
an  enchanted  spot  for  us,  and  I  doubt  if  the  greatest 
possible  familiarity  in  after  life  can  ever  breed  con- 
tempt for  it  in  our  hearts.  For  my  own  part,  I 
regarded  the  destruction  of  the  old  theatre  in  Fed- 
eral Street,  and  the  erection  of  warehouses  on  its 
hallowed  site,  as  a  positive  sacrilege.  And  I  cannot 
pass  that  spot,  even  at  this  late  day,  without  mentally 
recurring  to  the  joys  I  once  tasted  there.  Perhaps 
some  wrho  read  this  may  cherish  similar  sentiments 
about  the  old  Tremont  Theatre,  a  place  for  which  I 
had  as  great  a  fondness  as  one  can  have  for  a  theatre 
in  which  he  did  not  see  his  first  play.  The  very  men- 
tion of  it  calls  up  its  beautiful  interior  in  my  mind's 
eye, — its  graceful  proscenium,  its  chandeliers  around 
the  front  of  the  boxes,  its  comfortable  pit,  where  I 
enjoyed  so  much  good  acting,  and  all  the  host  of 
worthies  who  graced  that  spacious  stage.  Mr.  Gil- 
bert was  not  so  fat  in  those  days  as  he  is  now,  nor 
Mr.  Barry  so  gray.  What  a  picturesque  hero  was 
old  Brough  in  the  time  when  the  Woods  were  in  their 
golden  prime,  and  the  appearance  of  the  Count 
Rodolpho  on  the  distant  bridge  was  the  signal  for  a 
tempest  of  applause !  Who  can  forget  how  Mr. 
Ostinelli's  bald  head  used  to  shine,  as  he  presided 
over  that  excellent  orchestra,  or  how  funny  old 
Gear's  serious  face  looked,  as  he  peered  at  the  house 
through  those  heavy,  silver-bowed  spectacles?  Per- 

[358: 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES 

haps  for  some  of  my  younger  readers  the  stage  of 
the  Museum  possesses  similar  charms,  and  they  will 
find  themselves,  years  hence,  looking  back  to  the 
happy  times  when  Mr.  Angier  received  their  glitter- 
ing quarters,  and  they  hastened  up  stairs,  to  forget 
the  wanderings  of  ^Eneas  and  the  perplexities  of 
arithmetic  in  the  inimitable  fun  of  that  prince-regent 
among  comedians,  Mr.  William  Warren. 

But  wherever  we  may  have  commenced  our  dra- 
matic experience,  and  whatever  that  experience  may 
have  been,  we  have  all,  I  am  sure,  felt  the  influence 
of  that  mysterious  charm  which  hangs  over  the  stage. 
We  have  all  felt  that  keen  curiosity  to  penetrate  to 
the  source  of  so  much  enjoyment.  Who  has  not  had 
a  desire  to  enter  that  mysterious  door  which  conducts 
the  "sons  of  harmony"  from  the  orchestra  to  the 
unknown  depths  below  the  stage  ?  It  looks  dark  and 
forbidding,  but  we  feel  instinctively  that  it  is  not  so, 
when  we  see  our  venerated  uncle  Tom  Comer  carry- 
ing his  honest  and  sunshiny  face  through  it  so  often. 
That  green  curtain,  which  is  the  only  veil  between 
us  and  a  world  of  heroes  and  demigods,— how  en- 
viously do  we  look  at  its  dusty  folds!  With  what 
curiosity  do  we  inspect  the  shoes  of  varied  make  and 
colour  that  figure  in  the  little  space  between  it  and 
the  stage !  How  do  we  long  to  follow  the  hero  who 
has  strutted  his  hour  upon  the  stage  into  the  invisible 
recesses  of  P.  S.  and  O.  P.,  and  to  know  what  takes 
the  place  of  the  full  audience  and  the  glittering  row 
of  footlights  in  his  eyes  when  he  makes  his  exit  at  the 
"upper  entrance,  left,"  or  through  the  "door  in  flat" 
which  always  moves  so  noiselessly  on  its  hinges !  I 
think  that  the  performance  of  the  "Forty  Thieves" 

C3593 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

awakened  this  curiosity  in  my  mind  more  than  almost 
any  other  play.  I  longed  to  inspect  more  closely 
those  noble  steeds  that  came  with  such  a  jerky  gait 
over  the  distant  mountains,  and  to  know  what  pro- 
duced the  fearful  noise  that  attended  the  opening  of 
the  robbers'  cave.  I  believed  in  the  untold  wealth 
that  was  said  to  be  heaped  up  in  those  subterranean 
depths,  but  still  I  wished  to  look  at  the  "cavern  gob- 
let," and  see  how  it  compared  with  those  that 
adorned  the  cases  of  my  excellent  friends,  Messrs. 
Davis  and  Brown.  I  can  never  forget  the  thrill  that 
shot  through  me  when  Morgiana  lifted  the  cover  of 
the  oil  jar,  and  the  terrible  question,  "Is  it  time?" 
issued  from  it,  nor  my  admiration  for  the  fearless- 
ness of  that  self-possessed  maiden  when  she  an- 
swered with  those  eloquent  and  memorable  words, 
"Not  yet,  but  presently."  I  believed  that  the  com- 
pound which  Morgiana  administered  so  freely  to  the 
concealed  banditti  was  just  as  certain  death  to  every 
mother's  son  of  them  as  M.  Fousel's  Pabulum  Vita 
is  renewed  life  to  the  consumptives  of  the  present 
day;  and,  years  after  I  had  supposed  my  recollec- 
tions of  the  "Forty  Thieves"  to  have  become  very 
misty  and  shapeless,  I  found  myself  startled  in  an 
oriental  city  by  coming  upon  several  oil  jars  of  the 
orthodox  model,  and  I  astonished  the  malignant  and 
turbaned  Turk  who  owned  them,  and  amused  the 
companion  of  my  walks  about  Smyrna,  by  lifting  the 
lid  of  one  of  them,  and  quoting  the  words  of  Mor- 
giana. My  superstitions  concerning  that  pleasant 
old  melodrama  of  course  passed  away  when  I  be- 
came familiar  with  the  theatre  by  daylight,  and 
was  accustomed  to  exchange  the  compliments  of 
the  morning  with  the  estimable  gentleman  who 

£3603 


played  Hassarac;  but  the  illusion  of  its  first  per- 
formance has  never  been  entirely  blotted  from 
my  mind. 

Some  years  ago  it  was  my  privilege  to  visit  a  place 
which  is  classical  to  every  lover  of  the  drama  and  its 
literature.  Drury  Lane  Theatre,  now  that  its  an- 
cient rival,  Covent  Garden,  has  passed  away,  and 
been  replaced  by  a  house  exclusively  devoted  to  the 
lyric  muse,  is  the  only  theatre  of  London  which  is 
associated  in  every  mind  with  that  host  of  geniuses 
who  have  illustrated  dramatic  art  from  the  times  of 
Garrick  to  our  own.  That  gifted  and  versatile  actor, 
Mr.  Davenport,  who  stands  as  high  in  the  favour  of 
the  English  as  of  the  American  public,  conducted  me 
through  that  immense  establishment.  We  entered 
the  door,  which  I  had  often  looked  at  with  curiosity 
as  I  passed  through  the  long  colonnade  of  the  the- 
atre, encountering  several  of  those  clean-shaven  per- 
sonages in  clothes  that  would  be  much  refreshed  if 
they  were  allowed  to  take  a  nap,  and,  after  travers- 
ing two  or  three  dark  corridors,  found  ourselves 
upon  the  stage.  The  scene  of  so  many  triumphs  as 
have  there  been  achieved  is  not  without  its  attrac- 
tions, even  though  it  may  look  differently  en  desha- 
bille from  what  it  does  in  the  glitter  of  gaslight. 
The  stage  which  has  been  trod  by  the  Kembles,  the 
Keans,  Siddons,  Macready,  Young,  Palmer  Dowton, 
Elliston,  Munden,  Listen,  and  Farren,  is  by  no 
means  an  ordinary  combination  of  planks.  We 
know,  for  Campbell  has  told  us,  that 

by  the  mighty  actor  brought, 


Illusion's  perfect  triumphs  come; 
Verse  ceases  to  be  airy  thought, 
And  sculpture  to  be  dumb." 

£361 3 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

Yet  what  a  shadowy,  intangible  thing  the  reputation 
of  a  great  actor  would  seem  to  be  !  We  simply  know 
of  him  that  in  certain  characters  his  genius  held  the 
crowded  theatre  in  willing  thraldom,  and  made  the 
hearts  of  hundreds  of  spectators  throb  like  that  of 
one  man.  Those  who  felt  his  wondrous  power  have 
passed  away  like  himself;  and  all  that  remains  of 
him  who  once  filled  so  large  a  space  in  the  public  eye 
is  an  ill-written  biography  or  a  few  hastily  penned 
sentences  in  an  encyclopaedia. 

I  was  too  full  of  wonder  at  the  extent  of  that  vast 
stage,  however,  to  think  much  of  its  ancient  associa- 
tions. Those  lumbering  stacks  of  scenery  that  filled 
a  large  building  at  the  rear  of  the  stage,  and  ran  over 
into  every  available  corner,  told  the  story  of  the 
scenic  efforts  of  Old  Drury  during  nearly  half  a  cen- 
tury. How  many  dramas,  produced  "without  the 
slightest  regard  to  expense,"  and  "on  a  scale  of  un- 
paralleled splendour,"  must  have  contributed  to  the 
building  up  of  those  mighty  piles  !  The  labyrinthine 
passages,  the  rough  brick  walls,  darkened  by  time 
and  the  un-Penelope-like  spiders  of  Drury  Lane, 
were  in  striking  contrast  to  the  stage  of  that  theatre 
as  it  appears  from  the  auditorium.  The  green-room 
had  been  placed  in  mourning  for  the  "goodlie  com- 
panie"  that  once  filled  it,  by  the  all-pervading,  omni- 
present smoke  of  London.  Up  stairs  the  sight  was 
still  more  wonderful.  The  space  above  the  stage 
was  crowded  full  of  draperies,  and  borders,  and 
dusty  ropes,  and  wheels,  and  pulleys.  Davenport 
enjoyed  my  amazement,  and  led  me  through  a  dark- 
some, foot-wide  passage  above  the  stage,  through 
that  wilderness  of  cordage  to  the  machinists'  gallery. 

D62H 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES 

Take  all  the  rope-walks  that  you  have  ever  visited, 
dear  reader,  and  add  to  them  the  running  gear  of 
several  first-class  ships,  and  you  may  obtain  some- 
thing of  an  idea  of  the  sight  that  then  met  my  view. 
I  have  often  heard  an  impatient  audience  hiss  at 
some  trifling  delay  in  the  shifting  of  a  scene.  If  they 
could  see  the  complicated  machinery  which  must  be 
set  in  motion  to  produce  the  effects  they  desire,  their 
impatience  would  be  changed  to  wonder  at  the  skill 
and  care  which  are  so  constantly  exerted  and  make 
so  few  mistakes.  A  glance  into  two  or  three  of  the 
dressing-rooms,  and  a  hasty  visit  to  the  dark  maze  of 
machinery  beneath  the  stage  for  working  the  trap- 
doors, completed  my  survey  of  Old  Drury,  and  I  left 
its  ancient  walls  with  an  increased  respect  for  them, 
and  a  feeling  of  self-gratulation  that  I  was  neither 
an  actor  nor  a  manager. 

Not  long  after  the  above  visit,  I  availed  myself  of 
an  opportunity  to  make  a  similar  inspection  of  the 
Theatre  Francais,  in  the  Palais  Royal  at  Paris.  The 
old  establishment  is  not  so  extensive  as  that  of  Drury 
Lane,  but  its  main  features  are  the  same.  There 
was  an  air  of  government  patronage  about  it  which 
was  apparent  in  its  every  department.  The  stage 
entrance  was  through  a  long  and  well-lighted  corri- 
dor that  might  have  led  to  a  banking-house.  Its 
green-room  was  a  luxurious  saloon,  with  a  floor  of 
tessellated  walnut  and  oak,  waxed  and  polished  so 
highly  that  you  could  see  your  figure  in  it,  and  could 
with  difficulty  avoid  becoming  a  lay  figure  upon  it. 
Its  frescoed  ceiling  and  gilded  cornices,  its  immense 
mirrors,  and  its  walls  covered  with  the  portraits  of 
several  generations  of  players,  whose  genius  has 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

made  the  very  name  of  that  theatre  venerable 
throughout  the  civilized  world,  were  very  different 
from  most  of  the  green-rooms  that  I  had  seen.  In 
the  ancient  colleges  in  Italy  the  walls  of  the  class- 
rooms are  hung  with  portraits  of  the  distinguished 
scholars,  illustrious  prelates,  and  sometimes  of  the 
canonized  saints,  who  once  studied  under  their  time- 
honoured  roofs.  In  the  same  spirit,  the  green-room 
of  the  Theatre  Francois  is  adorned  with  busts  and 
pictures;  and  the  chairs  that  once  were  occupied  by  a 
Talma,  a  Mars,  and  a  Rachel  are  held  in  honour  in 
the  place  where  their  genius  received  its  full  develop- 
ment. The  dressing-rooms  of  the  brilliant  company 
which  sustains  the  high  reputation  of  that  house  are 
in  perfect  keeping  with  its  green-room.  Each  of  the 
leading  actors  and  actresses  has  a  double  room,  fur- 
nished in  a  style  of  comfortable  elegance.  In  the 
wardrobe  and  property  rooms,  the  imperial  patron- 
age is  visible  in  the  richness  of  the  stage  furniture 
and  the  profusion  of  dresses  made  of  the  costliest 
silks  and  velvets.  The  stage,  however,  is  very  much 
like  that  of  any  other  theatre.  There  were  the  same 
obscure  passages,  the  same  stupendous  collection  of 
intricate  machinery,  and  the  same  mysterious  odour, 
as  of  gas  and  musty  scenery,  pervaded  the  whole.  I 
was  permitted  to  view  all  its  arcana,  from  the  wheels 
that  revolve  in  dusty  silence  eighty  or  ninety  feet 
above  the  stage  to  the  ponderous  balance  weights 
that  dwell  in  the  darkness  of  the  second  and  third 
stories  below  it;  and  enjoyed  it  so  keenly  that  I  re- 
gretted to  be  told  that  I  had  seen  all,  and  to  find  my- 
self once  more  in  the  dazzling  sunshine  of  the  Rue 
de  Richelieu. 

£364:1 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES 

We  are  accustomed  to  speak  of  the  theatre  as  a 
repository  of  shams  and  unrealities,  and  to  contrast 
it  with  the  actualities  of  every-day  life.  I  hope  that 
you  will  excuse  me,  gentle  reader,  for  venturing  to 
deny  the  justice  of  all  such  figures  of  speech.  They 
are  as  false  as  that  common  use  of  the  expressions 
"sunrise"  and  "sunset,"  when  we  know  that  the  sun 
does  not  really  rise  or  set  at  all.  No,  it  is  the  theatre 
that  is  the  reality,  and  the  life  we  see  on  every  side 
the  sham.  The  theatre  is  all  that  it  pretends  to  be— 
a  scenic  illusion;  and  if  we  compare  it  to  the  world 
around  us,  with  its  loving  couples,  my-dearing  each 
other  before  folks,  and  exchanging  angry  words  over 
the  solitary  tea-tray, — its  politicians,  seeking  nomina- 
tions and  votes,  and  then  reluctantly  giving  up  their 
private  interests  and  comforts  for  the  "public  good," 
(as  the  spoils  of  office  are  facetiously  termed,)— its 
so-called  ministers  of  the  gospel,  who  speak  of  an 
offer  of  increased  salary  as  uan  opportunity  to  labour 
in  a  wider  sphere  of  usefulness,"— and  its  funerals, 
where  there  is  such  an  imposing  show  of  black  crape 
and  bombazine,  but  where  the  genuine  mourning 
commences  only  after  the  reading  of  the  will  of  the 
deceased,— I  am  sure  that  we  shall  be  justified  in 
concluding  that  the  fictitious  affair  which  we  try  to 
dignify  with  the  title  of  "real  life"  is  a  far  less  re- 
spectable illusion  than  the  mimic  scene  that  capti- 
vates us  in  the  hours  of  relaxation. 


THE   PHILOSOPHY  OF  CANT 

BE  not  dismayed,  kind  reader,  — I  have  no  inten- 
tion of  impressing  you  for  a  tiresome  cruise  in 
the  high  and  dangerous  latitudes  of  German  meta- 
physics; nor  do  I  wish  to  set  myself  up  as  a  critic  of 
pure  reason.  In  spite  of  Noah  Webster  and  his  in- 
quisitorial publishers,  I  still  cherish  a  partiality  for 
correct  orthography;  and  I  would  not  be  understood 
as  referring  in  the  caption  of  this  article  to  the  cele- 
brated founder  of  the  transcendental  school  of 
philosophy.  I  cannot  but  respect  Emmanuel  Kant  as 
a  remarkable  intellectual  man;  and  I  hope  to  be  par- 
doned for  saying  that  his  surname  might  properly  be 
anglicized,  by  spelling  it  with  a  C  instead  of  a  K. 
Neither  did  I  allude  to  the  useful  art  of  saying  "No" 
opportunely,  which  an  excellent  friend  of  mine 
(whose  numerous  virtues  are  neutralized  by  his  pro- 
pensity to  fabricate  puns  in  season  and  out  of  season) 
insists  upon  denominating  the  "philosophy  of  can't." 
That  faculty  which  is,  in  more  senses  than  one,  a 
negative  virtue,  is  unhappily  a  much  harder  thing  to 
find  than  the  vice  of  which  I  have  a  few  words  to  say. 
I  do  not  mean  cant  in  the  worse  sense  of  the  word, 
as  exemplified  in  the  characters  of  Pecksniff,  Stiggins, 
Chadband,  and  Aminadab  Sleek,  nor  even  in  those 
of  that  large  school  of  worshippers  of  propriety  and 
bond-servants  of  popular  opinion,  who  reverse  the 
crowning  glory  of  the  character  of  Porcius  Cato,  and 

C366U 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CANT 

prefer  to  seem,  rather  than  to  be,  good.  The  cant  I 
allude  to  is  the  technical  phraseology  of  the  various 
virtues,  which  some  people  appear  to  think  is  the 
same  thing  as  virtue  itself.  They  do  not  remember 
that  a  greasy  bank-note  is  valueless  save  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  a  given  quantity  of  bullion,  and  that  pious 
and  virtuous  language  is  of  no  account  except  its  full 
value  be  found  in  the  pure  gold  of  virtue  stored  away 
in  the  treasure-chambers  of  the  heart.  For  such  cant 
as  this  I  have  less  respect  than  for  downright  hypoc- 
risy; for  there  is  something  positive  about  the  char- 
acter of  your  genuine  villain,  which  certainly  does 
not  repel  me  so  strongly  as  the  milk-and-watery 
characteristics  of  that  numerous  class  of  every-day 
people  who  (not  being  good  enough  to  serve  as  ex- 
amples, nor  bad  enough  to  be  held  up  as  warnings) 
are  of  no  use  whatever  in  their  day  and  generation. 
What  possible  solace  can  he  who  deals  in  the  set 
phrases  of  consolation  administer  to  the  afflicted 
spirit  in  that  hour,  when  (even  among  the  closest 
friends)  "speech  is  silver,  but  silence  is  golden"? 

There  is  scarcely  a  subject  upon  which  men  con- 
verse, in  which  this  species  of  cant  does  not  play  its 
part;  but  there  are  some  matters  in  which  it  makes 
itself  so  conspicuous  that  I  cannot  resist  the  tempta- 
tion to  pay  particular  attention  to  them.  And,  as  the 
subject  is  rather  an  extensive  one,  I  will  parley  no 
longer  in  its  vestibule,  but  pull  off  my  overcoat,  and 
make  myself  at  home  in  its  front  parlour.  I  wish  to 
make  a  few  observations  on  cant  as  it  manifests  itself 
in  regard  to  morality,  philanthropy,  religion,  liberty, 
and  progress.  My  notions  will  excite  the  sneers  of 
some  of  my  younger  readers,  I  doubt  not,  and  per- 
il 367] 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

chance  of  some  older  ones;  but,  while  I  claim  the 
privilege  of  age  in  speaking  out  my  mind,  I  shall  try 
to  avoid  the  testiness  which  senility  too  often  mani- 
fests towards  those  who  do  not  respect  its  opinions. 
Convinced  that  mine  are  true,  I  can  afford  to  emulate 
"Messire  de  Mauprat"  in  his  patience,  and  wait  to 
see  my  fellow-men  pass  their  fortieth  birthday,  and, 
leaving  their  folly  and  enthusiasm  behind  them,  come 
round  to  my  position. 

The  cant  of  Morality  is  so  common  that  it  is  mis- 
taken by  many  excellent  people  for  morality  itself. 
To  leave  unnoticed  the  people  who  consider  it  very 
iniquitous  to  go  to  the  theatre,  but  perfectly  allow- 
able to  laugh  at  Mr.  Warren  on  the  stage  of  the 
Museum;  who  enjoy  backgammon,  but  shrink  from 
whist  with  holy  horror;  and  who  hold  up  their  hands 
and  cry  out  against  .he  innocent  Sunday  recreations 
of  continental  Europe,  yet  think  themselves  justified 
in  reading  their  Sunday  newspapers  and  the  popular 
magazines,  or  talking  of  the  style  of  the  new  bonnets 
which  made  their  first  appearance  at  the  morning 
service, — to  say  nothing  about  the  moralists  of  this 
school,  I  am  afraid  that  the  prevailing  notions  on 
matters  of  greater  import  than  mere  amusement  are 
not  such  as  would  stand  a  very  severe  moral  test. 
When  I  see  so  much  circumspection  with  regard  to 
external  propriety,  joined  with  such  an  evident  want 
of  principle,  it  seems  to  me  as  if  the  Ten  Command- 
ments of  the  Old  Law  had  been  superseded  by  an 
eleventh:  Thou  shalt  not  be  found  out.  When  I  see 
people  of  education  in  a  city  like  Boston,  dignifying 
lust  under  the  title  of  a  spiritual  affinity,  and  char- 
acterizing divorce  as  obedience  to  the  highest  natural 

C368] 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CANT 

law,  — and  still  more,  when  I  see  how  little  surprise 
the  enunciation  of  such  doctrines  occasions, — I  no 
longer  wonder  at  infidelity,  for  I  am  myself  tempted 
to  ask  whether  there  is  any  such  thing  as  abstract 
right  or  abstract  wrong,  and  to  question  whether 
morality  may  not  be  an  antiquated  institution,  which 
humanity  is  now  sufficiently  advanced  to  dispense 
with.  It  is  a  blessed  thing  that  we  have  not  the 
power  to  read  one  another's  hearts.  To  pass  by  the 
unhappiness  it  would  cause  us,  what  changes  it  would 
occasion  in  our  moral  classifications!  How  many 
men,  clad  in  picturesque  and  variegated  costumes, 
are  labouring  in  the  public  workshops  of  Charles- 
town,  or  Sing  Sing,  or  Pentonville,  who,  if  the  heart 
were  seen,  would  be  found  worthier  by  far  than  some 
of  those  ornaments  of  society  who  are  always  at  the 
head  of  their  pews,  and  whose  names  are  found 
alike  on  false  invoices  and  subscription  lists  for  evan- 
gelizing some  undiscovered  continent !  What  a  dif- 
ferent balance  would  be  struck  between  so-called 
respectability  in  its  costly  silks  and  its  comparative 
immunity  from  actual  temptation,  and  needy  wanton- 
ness displaying  its  rouge  and  Attleborough  jewelry 
all  the  more  boldly  because  it  feels  that  the  ban  of 
society  is  upon  itl 

And  this  brings  me  to  the  cant  of  Philanthropy. 
That  excellent  word  has  been  so  shamefully  abused 
of  late  years,  by  being  applied  to  the  empirical 
schemes  of  adventurers  and  social  disorganizers,  that 
you  cannot  now  say  a  much  worse  thing  of  a  man 
than  that  he  is  a  "philanthropist."  That  term  ought 
to  designate  one  of  the  noblest  representatives  of  the 
unselfish  side  of  human  nature;  but  to  my  mind,  it 

£369:1 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

describes  a  sallow,  long-haired,  whining  fellow,  who 
has  taken  up  with  the  profession  of  loving  all  men  in 
general,  that  he  may  better  enjoy  the  satisfaction  of 
hating  all  men  in  particular,  and  may  the  more  effec- 
tually prey  upon  his  immediate  neighbours;  a  mono- 
maniac, yet  with  sufficient  "method  in  his  madness" 
to  make  it  pay  a  handsome  profit;  a  knave  whose 
telescopic  vision  magnifies  the  spiritual  destitution  of 
Tching-tou,  and  can  see  nothing  wanting  to  complete 
our  Christian  civilization  but  a  willingness  to  con- 
tribute to  the  "great  and  good  work,"  and  whose 
commissions  for  disbursing  the  funds  are  frightfully 
disproportionate  to  the  amount  collected  and  the 
work  done.  But  there  is  a  great  deal  of  the  cant  of 
philanthropy  passing  current  even  among  those  who 
have  no  respect  for  the  professional  philanthropist. 
With  all  possible  regard  for  the  spirit  of  the  age,  I 
do  not  believe  that  modern  philanthropy  can  ever  be 
made  to  take  the  place  of  old-fashioned  Christian 
charity.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  underrate  the  benevo- 
lent efforts  which  are  made  in  this  community;  but  I 
cannot  help  seeing  that  while  thousands  are  spent  in 
alms,  we  lack  that  blessed  spirit  of  charity  which  im- 
parted such  a  charm  to  the  benevolent  institutions  of 
the  middle  ages.  They  seemed  to  labour  among  the 
poor  on  the  principle  which  Sir  Thomas  Browne  laid 
down  for  his  charities— "I  give  no  alms  to  satisfy  the 
hunger  of  my  brother,  but  to  fulfil  and  accomplish 
the  will  and  command  of  my  God;  I  draw  not  my 
purse  for  his  sake  that  demands  it,  but  His  that  en- 
joined it."  We  irreverent  moderns  have  tried  to 
improve  upon  this,  and  the  result  is  seen  in  legal  en- 
actments against  mendicancy,  in  palatial  prisons  for 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CANT 

criminals,  and  in  poorhouses  where  the  needy  are 
obliged  to  associate  with  the  vicious  and  depraved. 
The  "dark  ages"  (as  the  times  which  witnessed  the 
foundation  of  the  greatest  universities,  hospitals,  and 
asylums  the  world  ever  saw,  are  sometimes  called) 
were  not  dark  enough  for  that. 

Do  what  we  may  to  remedy  this  defect  in  our 
solicitude  for  the  suffering  classes,  the  legal  view  of 
the  matter  will  still  predominate.  We  may  imitate 
the  kindliness  of  the  ancient  times,  but  we  cannot 
disguise  the  fact  that  pauperism  is  regarded  not  only 
as  a  great  social  evil,  but  as  an  offence  against  our 
laws.  While  this  is  so,  we  shall  labour  in  vain  to 
catch  the  tone  of  the  days  when  poverty  was  en- 
nobled by  the  virtues  of  the  apostolic  Francis  of 
Assisi  and  the  heroic  souls  that  relinquished  wealth 
and  power  to  share  his  humble  lot.  The  voice  of  our 
philanthropy  may  be  the  voice  of  Jacob,  but  the  hand 
will  be  the  hand  of  Esau.  That  true  gentleman  and 
kind-hearted  knight  whom  I  have  already  quoted, 
had  no  patience  with  this  contempt  for  poverty  which 
was  just  growing  into  sight  in  his  time,  but  is  now  so 
common;  and  he  administered  to  it  a  rebuke  which 
has  lost  none  of  its  force  by  the  lapse  of  more  than 
two  hundred  years:  "Statists  that  labour  to  contrive 
a  commonwealth  without  poverty,  take  away  the  ob- 
ject of  charity,  not  understanding  only  the  common- 
wealth of  a  Christian,  but  forgetting  the  prophecy 
of  Christ." 

In  making  any  allusion  to  religious  cant,  I  am  sen- 
sible that  I  tread  on  very  dangerous  ground.  Still, 
in  an  essay  on  such  a  subject  as  the  present,  revival- 
ism ought  not  to  go  unnoticed.  God  forbid  that  a 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

man  at  my  time  of  life  should  pen  a  light  word 
against  any  thing  that  may  draw  men  from  their 
worldliness  to  a  more  intimate  union  with  their  Cre-- 
ator.  But  the  revival  extravagances  which  last  year 
made  the  profane  laugh  and  the  devout  grieve,  merit 
the  deprecation  of  every  person  who  does  not  wish 
to  see  religion  itself  brought  into  contempt.  I  do  not 
believe  in  the  application  of  the  high-pressure  system 
to  the  spiritual  life.  Some  persons  seem  to  regard  a 
religious  excitement  as  an  evidence  of  a  healthy 
spiritual  state.  As  well  might  they  consider  a  fever 
induced  by  previous  irregularity  to  be  a  proof  of 
returning  bodily  health.  As  the  physician  of  the 
body  would  endeavour  to  restore  the  patient  to  his 
normal  state,  so  too  the  true  physician  of  the  soul 
would  labour  to  banish  the  religious  fever  from  the 
mind  of  his  patient,  and  to  plant  therein  the  sure 
principles  of  spiritual  health — a  clearly-defined  dog- 
matic belief,  and  a  deep  conviction  of  the  sinfulness 
of  sin.  We  all  need  to  be  from  time  to  time  re- 
minded that  true  religion  is  not  a  mere  effervescence, 
not  a  vain  blaze,  but  a  reality  which  reflects  some- 
thing of  the  unchangeable  glory  of  its  divine  Author. 
It  is  not  a  volcano,  treasuring  within  its  bosom  a 
fierce,  destructive  element,  sullenly  smouldering  and 
smoking  for  years,  and  making  intermittent  exhibi- 
tions of  a  power  as  terrible  as  it  is  sublime.  No ;  it  is 
rather  a  majestic  and  deep-flowing  river,  taking  its 
rise  amid  lofty  mountains  whose  snowy  crags  and 
peaks  are  pure  from  the  defilement  of  our  lower 
world,  fed  from  heaven,  bearing  in  its  broad  current 
beauty,  and  fertility,  and  refreshment,  to  regions 
which  would  else  be  sterile  and  joyless,  and  emptying 
at  last  into  a  shoreless  and  untroubled  sea,  whose 

C3723 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CANT 

bright  surface  mirrors  eternally  the  splendour  of  the 
skies. 

That  the  cant  of  Liberty  should  be  popular  with 
the  American  tongue  is  not,  perhaps,  to  be  wondered 
at.  A  young  nation, — which  has  achieved  its  own 
independence  in  a  contest  with  one  of  the  most  pow- 
erful governments  in  the  world, — which  has  grown 
in  territory,  population,  and  wealth  beyond  all  his- 
torical precedent, — and  which  has  a  new  country  for 
its  field  of  action,  so  that  its  progress  is  unimpeded 
by  the  relics  of  ancient  civilization  or  the  ruins  of 
dead  empires,— could  not  reasonably  be  expected  to 
resist  all  temptations  to  self-glorification.  The 
American  eagle  is  no  mere  barnyard  fowl — content 
with  a  secure  roost  and  what  may  be  picked  up  within 
sight  of  the  same.  He  is  the  most  insatiable  of  birds. 
His  fierce  eye  and  bending  beak  look  covetous,  and 
his  whole  aspect  is  one  of  angry  anxiety  lest  his  prey 
should  be  snatched  from  him,  or  his  dominion  should 
be  called  in  question.  In  this  regard  he  differs  greatly 
from  his  French  relative,  who  squats  with  such  a 
conscious  air  of  superiority  on  the  tops  of  the  regi- 
mental standard-poles  of  the  imperial  army,  and  sur- 
veys the  forest  of  bayonets  in  which  he  makes  his  nest 
as  if  he  felt  that  his  power  was  undisputed.  And 
we  Americans  are  not  less  uneasy  and  wild  than  the 
bird  we  have  chosen  for  our  national  emblem,  and 
appear  to  think  that  the  essential  part  of  liberty  con- 
sists in  keeping  up  an  endless  talk  about  it.  Our 
cant  of  freedom  needs  to  be  reminded  of  Tom 
Hood's  observation  concerning  religious  cant: — 

"  'Tis  not  so  plain  as  the  old  hill  of  Howth, 

A  man  has  got  his  bellyful  of  meat, 
Because  he  talks  with  victuals  in  his  mouth  1" 

C3733 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

With  all  our  howling  about  liberty,  we  Americans 
are  abject  slaves  to  a  theory  of  government  which 
we  feel  bound  to  defend  under  all  circumstances,  and 
to  propagate  even  in  countries  which  are  entirely 
unfitted  for  it.  This  constitutional  theory  is  a  fine 
thing  to  talk  about;  few  topics  afford  so  wide  a  range 
to  the  imaginative  powers  of  a  young  orator.  It  is 
not  therefore  to  be  wondered  at,  that  the  subject 
should  be  so  often  forced  upon  us,  and  that  so  many 
startling  contrasts  should  be  drawn  between  our  gov- 
ernmental experiment  and  the  thousand-years-old 
monarchies  of  Europe.  These  comparisons  (which 
some  people  who  make  republicanism  such  an  article 
of  faith,  that  they  must  find  it  hard  to  repeat  the 
clause  of  the  Lord's  prayer,  "Thy  kingdom  come," 
— are  so  fond  of  drawing)  remind  me  of  the  question 
that  was  discussed  in  the  Milesian  debating  society 
— "Which  was  the  greatest  man,  St.  Patrick  or  the 
Fourth  of  July?"  and  the  conclusions  drawn  from 
them  are  very  like  the  result  of  that  momentous 
debate,  which  was  decided  in  the  affirmative. 

For  my  own  part,  I  have  got  past  the  age  when 
eloquence  and  poetry  are  of  much  account  in  matters 
of  such  vital  importance  as  government.  When  I 
buy  a  pair  of  overshoes,  my  first  object  is  to  get  some- 
thing that  is  water-proof.  So,  too,  in  the  matter  of 
government,  I  only  wish  to  know  whether  the  pur- 
poses for  which  government  is  instituted— the  pro- 
tection of  the  life,  property,  and  personal  liberty  of 
its  subjects — are  answered;  and,  if  they  are,  I  am 
ready  to  swear  allegiance  to  it,  not  caring  a  splinter 
of  a  ballot-box  whether  it  be  founded  on  hereditary 
succession  or  a  roll  of  parchment,  or  whether  its 

D74;] 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CANT 

executive  authority  be  vested  in  a  president,  a  king, 
or  an  emperor.  That  is  the  best  governmerft  which 
is  best  administered;  it  makes  little  difference  what 
you  call  it,  or  on  what  theory  it  is  built.  I  love  my 
country  dearly,  and  yield  to  no  one  in  my  loyalty  to 
her  government  and  laws ;  but  (pardon  me  for  being 
so  matter-of-fact,  and  seemingly  unpatriotic)  I  would 
willingly  part  with  some  of  this  boasted  liberty  of 
ours,  to  secure  a  little  more  wisdom  in  making  laws, 
and  a  good  deal  more  strength  in  executing  them.  I 
count  the  privilege  of  talking  politics  and  of  choosing 
between  the  various  political  adventurers  who  aspire 
to  be  my  rulers,  as  a  very  insignificant  affair  com- 
pared with  a  sense  of  security  against  popular  vio- 
lence and  the  dishonesty  of  dealers  in  the  necessaries 
of  life.  And  I  cannot  help  thinking,  that  for  the 
inhabitants  of  a  country  where  there  is  little  rev- 
erence for  authority  or  willing  obedience  to  law, 
where  the  better  class  of  the  citizens  refuse  to  take 
any  part  in  politics,  and  where  the  legislative  power 
is  enthroned,  not  in  the  Senate,  nor  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  but  in  the  Lobby,— for  the  inhabi- 
tants of  such  a  country  to  boast  of  their  liberty 
aloud,  is  the  most  absurd  of  all  the  cants  in  this  cant- 
ing world. 

Little  as  I  respect  the  cant  of  liberty,  I  care  even 
less  for  the  cant  of  Progress.  I  never  had  much  pa- 
tience with  this  worship  of  the  natural  sciences,  which 
is  rapidly  getting  to  be  almost  the  only  religion 
among  certain  cultivated  people  in  this  quarter.  I 
remember  in  my  boyhood  startling  by  my  scientific 
apathy  a  precocious  companion  who  used  to  bother 
his  brains  about  the  solar  system,  and  one  useless 

D75II 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

ology  and  another,  in  the  precious  hours  which  ought 
to  have  been  devoted  to  Robinson  Crusoe  and  the 
Arabian  Nights'  Entertainments.  He  had  been 
labouring  hard  to  explain  to  me  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion, and  concluded  with  the  bold  statement  that, 
were  it  not  for  that  law,  an  apple,  with  which  he  had 
been  illustrating  his  theory,  instead  of  falling  to  the 
earth,  might  roll  off  the  unprotected  side  of  this  sub- 
lunary sphere  into  the  abyss  of  space, — or  something 
to  that  effect.  He  could  not  conceal  his  contempt  for 
my  want  of  scientific  ardour,  when  I  asked  him 
whether  he  should  really  care  if  it  did  roll  off,  so  long 
as  there  was  a  plenty  left !  I  did  wrong  to  joke  him, 
for  he  was  a  good  fellow,  in  spite  of  his  weakness. 
It  is  many  years  since  he  figured  himself  out  of  this 
unsatisfactory  world,  into  a  state  of  existence  where 
vision  is  clearer  even  than  mathematical  demonstra- 
tion, and  where  x  does  not  "equal  the  unknown  quan- 
tity." 

Pardon  this  digression:  in  complaining  of  the 
vaunted  progress  of  this  rapid  age,  I  am  making  little 
progress  myself.  It  appears  to  me  that  the  people 
who  laud  this  age  so  highly  either  do  not  know  what 
true  progress  is,  or  suffer  themselves  to  mistake  the 
means  for  the  end.  Your  cotton  mills,  and  steam  en- 
gines, and  clipper  ships,  and  electric  telegraphs,  do 
not  constitute  progress;  they  are  means  by  which  it 
may  be  attained.  If  gunpowder,  immediately  after 
its  invention,  had  been  devoted  to  the  indiscriminate 
destruction  of  mankind,  could  such  an  invention  have 
justly  been  termed  progress?  If  the  press  were  used 
only  to  perpetuate  the  blasphemies  and  indecencies 
of  Mazzini  and  Eugene  Sue,  who  would  esteem 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CANT 

Gutenberg  and  Fust  as  benefactors,  or  promoters  of 
true  progress?  And  if  the  increased  facilities  for 
travel,  and  the  other  inventions  on  which  this  age 
prides  itself,  only  tend  to  make  men's  minds  nar- 
rower by  absorbing  them  in  material  interests,  and 
their  souls  more  mean  by  giving  them  the  idol  of 
prosperity  to  worship,  then  is  this  nineteenth  century 
a  century  of  progress  indeed,  but  in  the  wrong  direc- 
tion. And  if  our  mode  of  education  only  augments 
the  ratio  of  crime  among  the  lower  class,  and  makes 
superficial  pretenders  of  the  higher  orders  of  society, 
it  is  not  a  matter  which  will  justify  our  setting  our- 
selves quite  so  high  above  past  ages  and  the  rest  of 
the  world. 

I  cannot  see  what  need  nor  what  excuse  there  is  for 
all  this  bragging.  A  great  many  strong  men  lived 
before  Agamemnon,— and  after  him.  We  indeed  do 
some  things  that  would  astonish  our  forefathers;  but 
how  are  we  superior  to  them  on  that  account  ?  We 
enslave  the  lightnings  of  heaven  to  be  our  messen- 
gers, and  compel  the  sun  to  take  our  portraits ;  but  if 
our  electric  wires  are  prostituted  to  the  chicanery  of 
trade  or  politics,  and  the  faces  which  the  sun  por- 
trays are  expressive  of  nothing  nobler  than  mercan- 
tile shrewdness  and  the  price  of  cotton,  the  less  we 
boast  of  our  achievements,  the  better/  Thucydides 
never  had  his  works  puffed  in  a  newspaper,  Virgil 
and  Horace  never  poetized  or  lectured  for  a  lyceum ; 
Charlemagne  never  saw  a  locomotive,  nor  did  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas  ever  use  a  friction  match.  Yet  this 
unexampled  age  possesses,  I  apprehend,  few  his- 
torians who  would  not  shrink  from  being  compared 
with  the  famous  Greek  annalist,  few  poets  worthy 

C377U 


MY  UNKNOWN  CHUM 

to  wear  the  crowns  of  the  friends  of  the  great  Augus- 
tus, few  rulers  more  sagacious  and  firm  than  the  first 
Emperor  of  the  West,  and  few  scholars  who  would 
not  consider  it  a  privilege  to  be  taught  by  the 
Angelic  Doctor. 

True  progress  is  something  superior  to  your  puff- 
ing engines  and  clicking  telegraphs,  and  independent 
of  them.  It  is  the  advancement  of  humanity  in  the 
knowledge  of  its  frailty  and  dependence;  the  eleva- 
tion of  the  mind  above  its  own  limited  acquirements, 
to  the  infinite  source  of  knowledge ;  the  cleansing  of 
the  heart  of  its  selfishness  and  uncleanness;  in  fact, 
it  is  any  thing  whatever  that  tends  to  assimilate  man 
more  closely  to  the  divine  Exemplar  of  perfect  man- 
hood. 

THE  END. 


C3783 


A 

FAR  AWAY 
PRINCESS 

By 
CHRISTIAN  REID 


"Has  the  stage,  the  so-called  artistic  temperament, 
or  advanced  feminism  ever  yet  given  to  any  man  a 
wife — to  any  child  a  mother — to  either  husband  or 
child  a  home?"  "Are  the  exceptions  so  rare  that  they 
only  emphasize  the  rule?" 

THE 

DAUGHTER 
OF  A  STAR 

By 
CHRISTIAN  REID 

Price  $1.50  net     $1.60  postpaid      Price  $1.50  net     $1.60  postpaid 

These  two  books  of  the  stage  and  the  home  are  unquestionably 
the  best  works  of  Christian  Reid,  who  has  done  more  to  make 
virtue  interesting,  as  well  as  charming,  than  any  Author 
that  ever  lived.  Her  graceful,  limpid  English  might  well  be 
used  as  a  model  for  aspiring  writers.  She  doesn't  depend  for 
inspiration  upon  a  health-destroying  cocktail,  a  cigarette  and  a 
muse  perched  no  higher  than  a  smoke-bowl. 

Her  English  is  better  than  Balzac's  French,  and  she  is  worth 
a  forest  of  his  understudy  authors,  whose  sex-inspired  lures 
smother  the  flaunted  moral. 

Read  Christian  Reid  and  be  impelled  to  commend  her  to  those 
you  love — such  books  tend  to  make  you  an  open  book  to  you 
and  yours. 

If  you  doubt  the  merits  of  A  DAUGHTER  OF  A  STAR  and 
A  FAR  AWAY  PRINCESS— get  them  at  the  library— then 
you  will  want  to  own  them.  A  book  not  worth  owning  is  not 
worth  reading.  The  Devin-Adair  Company  will  deliver  to  any 
part  of  the  world  and  refund  if  dissatisfied. 

"Critics  praise  poets  and  novelists  that  use  marked  artistic 
skill  on  foul  material;  but,  if  you  cut  open  a  goat  and  find 
his  interior  stuffed  with  rosebuds,  is  the  beast  any  the  less  a 
goat?"  From  KEYSTONES  OF  THOUGHT,  by  Austin 
O'Malley,  the  world's  master  of  aphoristic  thought  and  ex- 
pression, who  says  of  THE  DAUGHTER  OF  A  STAR  and 
A  FAR  AWAY  PRINCESS:  "I  like  these  books.  They  are 
excellent  examples  of  how  to  be  interesting  though  clean. 

THE  DEVIN-ADAIR  COMPANY,  Publisher* 

NEW  YORK 


"/fas  the  stage,  the  so-called  artistic  temperament, 
or  advanced  feminism  ever  yet  given  to  any  man  a 
wife — to  any  child  a  mother — to  either  husband  or 
child  a  home?"  "Are  the  exceptions  so  rare  that  they 
only  emphasize  the  rule?" 

Beauty  and  Nick 

BY  PHILIP  GIBBS 

"The  Premier  War  Correspondent" 
Author  of  "The  Eighth  Year,"  etc. 
$1.50  net.  $1.60  postpaid 

Mr.  Gibbs,  most  brilliant  of  war  correspondents, 
probes  deeper  than  any  living  writer.  Critics  declare 
that  his  best  work  is  in  Beauty  and  Nick — novelized 
facts  in  the  life  of  an  international  Star,  her  husband — 
and  a  Son,  "who  foots  the  bill." 

Beauty,  the  gifted  actress,  is  the  counterpart  of  the 
Mother-mummer  of  Christian  Reid's  DAUGHTER 
OF  A  STAR — and  both  women  are  the  antitheses  in 
culture  and  character  of  A  Far  Away  Princess. 

Every  man  who  loves  or  ever  will  love  a  woman 
MUST  read  "Beauty  and  Nick." 

Every  woman,  single  or  married,  SHOULD  read 
"Beauty  and  Nick." 

Every  Husband  and  every  Wife  that  prefers  a  Baby 
to  a  dog — a  home  to  a  domestic  kennel,  WILL  surely 
read  "Beauty  and  Nick." 

You  will  read  "Beauty  and  Nick,"  "The  Daughter 
of  a  Star"  and  "A  Far  Away  Princess"  more  than  once ; 
you  will  keep  them  till  your  children  are  grown  up, 
when  they  will  read  them  and  thank  you  for  your 
thoughtf ulness. .  You  will  lend  or  commend  them  to 
the  "born  musician,"  to  the  "born  actor  or  actress," 
to  the  woman  with  an  uplift  mission — to  nosey  spin- 
sters, childless  divorcees,  temper-tongued  wives  and 
others  who  are  trying  to  squeeze  the  World  into  a 
globed  hell  for  normal  women  and  Homeless  Hus- 
bands. 

THE  DEVIN-ADAIR  COMPANY,  Publish^ 

NEW  YORK 


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